


Checklists and Promises

by crossingwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (Are they both secretly switches but need to figure that out? Yes.), Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Analingus, Angst, BDSM, Ben Solo Goes To Therapy, Ben Solo Needs Therapy, Bisexual Ben Solo, Bondage, Cunnilingus, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fingering, Hand Jobs, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Rape, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Shibari, Submissive Ben Solo, Vomiting, Wartenberg Wheel, abuse recovery, bisexual rey, domme rey, tags to update with chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:20:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26444044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: She looked back at the photograph attached to the top of the email.  He wasn’t conventionally handsome but there was something compelling about his eyes.  And his lips—they were definitely dick-sucking lips, plush, and red.  She could have fun with those lips.  But his eyes…Kylo, 29, ten years experience as a sub, references upon request.—Rey's new to being a Domme, and when she comes across Kylo's sub profile, she worries she doesn't have enough experience for him.  Kylo has ten years of experience subbing, after all.  Soon enough, though, it's clear that even if she's something Kylo wants, she might also be someone that he needs.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 561
Kudos: 1028
Collections: Queerly Beloved Reylo Fics, The Reylo Collection, The Sub!Ben Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok kids so, it turns out, when you spend a weekend coping with the stresses of adopting a cat (hopefully soon!) by reading some BDSM romance novels on your kindle curled up in bed, you end up figuring out exactly what you want to do with the nebulous BDSM headcanons you've been sitting on for a few years. Who knew.
> 
> Here's Chapter 1. I won't post the rest until the fic is fully drafted. I don't know how long that'll take but hopefully not too too long. I'm balancing editing a fantasy novel draft that I'm hoping to query soon but this may end up being my Coping Mechanism For That.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this one! Please mind the tags! I'll trigger warn before each chapter as best I can as well when relevant.

_ Rey scanned his checklist nervously.  _ I can do this. I can do this.

Breathe, lovely.

_ She closed her eyes. She could still feel Ahsoka’s hand on her back, gently tugging at the braid that she insisted Rey always wear in her playroom.  _ You think too much. Let it go.

_ She swallowed. _

_ You can’t be a good Dom without training, and learning to sub was hard. Harder than Rey wanted to admit. Ahsoka taught her well though. She could do this. She would. _

_ She looked down at the checklist again. _

_ Kylo seemed open to just about anything. He hadn’t listed anything as a hard no—including pain. Rey always took that as a danger sign. She didn’t like inflicting pain. Subs who wanted pain—they weren’t right for her. _

_ Just because a sub says they’re open to pain doesn’t mean they want it. It just means that their Doms can use it if they need to chastise.  _

_ She looked back at the photograph attached to the top of the email. He wasn’t conventionally handsome but there was something compelling about his eyes. And his lips—they were definitely dick-sucking lips, plush, and red. She could have fun with those lips. But his eyes… _

Kylo, 29, ten years experience as a sub, references upon request.

_ His profile was sparser than some of the other ones she’d looked at and she hadn’t moved fast with those. By the time she’d gotten in touch, they’d already been snapped up by other, more experienced Doms.  _

_ Kylo though… _

_ She didn’t know why but something about his face made her want to hold back. There was something guarded there.  _ You can’t be guarded and be a submissive. You need to give me everything. You need to want to give me everything.

_ She didn’t have to collar him right away. A test session, maybe. She could try a test weekend. _

_ She opened an email reply to the agent and sent it. _

-

Kylo arrived at her house at precisely three pm, wearing something nice. She’d allowed him to decide what he thought something nice meant. It would help her get a sense of his character. Maybe she’d care one day, but right now she didn’t.

His version of something nice was a black turtleneck and black jeans. His keys were attached to a silver chain that ran from his beltloop to his pocket and good fucking lord he was ripped. She could see the contour of every muscle in that chest of his through the form-fitting turtleneck. Did he have an eight-pack? She’d seen some of his muscles from the pictures in his application but this was different. Maybe because he was a full head taller than her. Proportionally, that meant his shoulders were just wider than she’d thought they were.

“Welcome,” she said quietly, her voice dry but she pretended it was husky. He wasn’t looking at her, his gaze downcast, focused, she imagined, on her kneecap.

“Thank you,” he said, stepping through the door. She closed it behind him and gestured towards her kitchen. The house was small. She didn’t have a dedicated playroom. Maybe one day. If she actually had the career progression that they kept promising her.  _ What if you’re not experienced enough? What if he doesn’t want you? _

She shoved that thought away. He had ten years experience and he was here. That was all that mattered.

“Can I get you tea?” she asked him. “Wine?”

“If you’d like,” he said noncommittally and she paused. 

“We haven’t started anything,” she told him. “You can answer honestly. There are things I’d like to know about you before we begin.”

“Just water please,” he said after a moment. He still wasn’t looking at her. 

“Please sit,” she told him and he did as she filled a water glass for him.

“Ice?”

A pause.

“Yes please.”

She returned and handed him the glass. 

“Before we begin, I had some questions about your checklist.” He didn’t reply. “We haven’t begun anything yet, you can speak freely.” Something about his silence gave her the jitters. If they’d fully entered into an agreement, it would be different. Then, his silence would be submission  _ to her _ instead of submission to the world around him.  _ He has more experience than you,  _ she repeated to herself.  _ He is probably assuming you’re like his previous Doms.  _

“Look at me,” she said and he looked up at once. His expression was as guarded as his photograph—so were his eyes this time.  _ Maybe he’s nervous too.  _ “It’s ok,” she told him. 

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” he said quietly.

“You won’t,” she said.

He didn’t reply.

“I wanted to ask you about your pain willingness,” she said gently and he stiffened. “I don’t like using pain during play.”  _ I don’t even like using it during chastisement, but that’s different. _ “But I wanted to make sure it wasn’t an expectation of yours that would disappoint you. If it is, then we should part here. If it’s not then I think we can proceed with the rest of the afternoon.”

She watched the way his chest expanded and retracted in that turtleneck as he breathed slowly, in and out. In and out. 

“I wish to serve you. If you don’t wish to apply pain, that is your decision and I will not complain.”

“But do you want it?” His breathing got faster, a little shakier. He took a sip of water and his hand trembled. “Kylo,” she said gently.

_ You’ll find subs who’ve had bad Doms before,  _ Ahsoka told her.  _ It’s never a good thing to see. Just remember that sometimes there are pains you won’t be able to fix. They need to go to therapy.  _

Her heart broke a little. 

“No,” he said quietly and when he looked at her there was something raw in his eyes, something burning, something dying. “No, I don’t want pain.”

Rey nodded. She reached for his hand, which was resting on the table. She brushed her fingers against his. “No pain, then.”

“Except during chastisement,” he said dully.

_ I can try other ways to chastise you,  _ she thought. She’ll call Ahsoka later, assuming this went well. 

“You have ten years of experience,” she replied. She kept her voice quiet, gentle, like she was trying to soothe a skittish cat. “Do you think I’m going to have to chastise you?”

He swallowed. “There’s always a transition period,” he hedged. “Getting to know you, getting to know—”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” she interrupted.  _ Please don’t fuck up before I can call Ahsoka and get her thoughts. _

She knew what Ahsoka’s thoughts would be:  _ don’t try and fix him, Rey. He needs a therapist if it’s that bad. _

She could frame it as him putting pain as a hard limit. Because it was, even if it hadn’t been on his checklist. He just was afraid to put it there, because what Dom would want a sub who put pain as a hard limit?

_ What about wax-play, which stings and burns? Clamps? _

She’d ask about those later, if he pleased her. She’d start off with some good old-fashioned bondage today, she supposed. 

“Do you have any questions for me before we begin?” 

“What should I call you while we test?”

Rey swallows. Ahsoka hated when subs called her  _ Mistress _ . She didn’t like the connotation of the word. If the submission was consensual, she didn’t like the implication that it wasn’t, and there was subtext there that implied it might not be. Ever since she said it, Rey hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. She didn’t like  _ Ma’am _ either—it felt too old;  _ Miss _ was too diminutive. She knew some Dommes went by  _ Princess _ , but that felt off too. She wasn’t a princess. She was a pauper who’d clawed her way out of poverty with everything she had. 

Kylo waited. His hands were on his knees, his gaze was still on her, even and patient.  _ I didn’t ask him to look away. _

Why is it that  _ everything _ related to women and power was gendered? None of it felt neutral the way that male forms of address did.  _ Sir _ would be ideal, but there wasn’t anything equivalent that didn’t feel either matronly or childish. 

“Sir for now,” she said and she saw a flash of surprise in his eyes and she scrambled. “Something else later, if you earn it.”

“Yes, sir,” he said at once.

“Shall we begin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Take off your shirt and follow me.”

Good lord, he really did have an eight-pack.

Her bedroom faced a back alley, and she kept the windows closed and curtained all the time. It wasn’t huge—in fact, it seemed quite small now that Kylo stood in it—but it would do for now. Maybe at some point she’d feel comfortable playing in the living room, which was a little more spacious, but not right away.

She opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a blindfold before pausing. Initially, she’d planned to blindfold him today. She didn’t want to get distracted by emotions, she wanted to watch his submission, see how quick he was to act upon her commands. But now she wasn’t sure. 

“Safewords,” she yelped, whirling around to look at him. How had she fucking forgotten safewords? God what an idiot. “Green, yellow, red?”

“Yes, sir.”

She nodded.

Yeah, she put the blindfold back. She wanted to see his eyes today. They might help her calm down.

They might make her realize she was wrong for him. Not experienced enough.

_ Trying to fix him in ways you can’t. _

“Pants off too, I think,” she said and immediately his hands were on his fly, unzipping, pulling his waistband down and—

Her mouth went dry. 

His dick was huge.

Long, and thick, and smooth. Even if it doesn’t swell up, that—that would fill her up incredibly. And she knows that it’d only get bigger when he was aroused.

_ I’m gonna put a cock ring on that thing one day and ride him until neither of us know our names anymore. _

His gaze was downcast, his hands at his side. He knew she was staring at him. She hoped he liked that she was staring at him. She stepped closer, abandoning her dresser drawer for a moment. She trailed her fingertips across his chest lightly. It was smooth. He must wax it. “You take good care of yourself.” He didn’t reply. “It pleases me.”

He shivered slightly, though from the praise or from her touch she wasn’t sure. 

“I’m going to tie you up now,” she told him. 

She caught the way he exhaled this time—as though he’d been holding onto breath and was letting it out in relief now. If they matched, something told her her flogger and her crop would go untouched for a while. She’d miss them, but submission was a gift. She’d learned that kneeling before Ahsoka. You do not throw a gift back in the giver’s face.

The hemp rope was neatly coiled and she pulled it out. His chest was so broad that she wondered if she’d have enough of it, but she’d cross that bridge when she got there. 

She liked Shibari. She liked it when Ahsoka taught her, liked the constraint of not being able to move, liked the rub of the rope against her skin. Her nipples had ended up so sensitive and her cunt—

She’d been wet for days after the first time.

She began tying Kylo, wrapping the rope first as a harness around the back of his neck to secure it, then criss-crossing a diamond pattern across his chest and around his arms at his back. His skin was pale, but a flush was growing and as she got lower and lower on his chest, his erection began to brush against her.

“Enjoying this?” she asked him, looking up. His gaze was still downcast but from where she was bent around his navel, her chin just above his dick, they locked eyes. “Answer freely when I ask a question.”

“Yes, sir,” he said quietly. His eyes were soft, and he licked his lips. 

“Hungry?” she asked him.

“I ate before I came.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Yes, sir,” he said at last. 

And the way his eyes burned—she was wearing far too many clothes. She was slick already, but something told her she’d be positively sopping wet by the time she was done.

She smiled up at him and trailed a hand up and down the side of his hip. “Soon,” she told him. “For patient boys.”

“Yes, sir.”

Damn, she should have taken off her shirt. He’d have such a good view of her tits in the black lace bra she was wearing. Should she pause and take it off now? Or would it be too obvious that she’d forgotten?

She didn’t want him to think she was bad at this and she already slipped up with the safeword conversation. She slipped up  _ massively _ with the safeword conversation.

_ Focus _ , she told herself.  _ Focus, Rey.  _ She returned to tying him.

When she got to his penis, she took a long, slow breath. She and Ahsoka had practiced this on a fucking banana. Bananas bruise easily, they squish easily. Penises were delicate too. 

His erection was just as massive as she’d thought it would be. His skin was flushed red, and there was already a drop of precum at his tip. She ran her hand along it and he groaned. 

“You like that?” she asked him, doing it again.

“Yes, sir,” he gritted out.

She stroked him again. “You’re being so good for me.” 

His breath hitched as she continued to palm his cock. The heft of it was so wonderful in her hand. He was so warm. 

“Do you know what happens to good boys?” she asked.

“What happens to good boys, sir?”

She licked him and his entire body jerked—or it would if she hadn’t tied his chest and arms. His hips jerked, though and she swatted his ass lightly. Not enough to cause pain.  _ There’ll be no pain in this bedroom,  _ she vowed. “Did I tell you to move?”

“No sir,” he said at once, and she hated the horror she heard in his voice.

“And just when I’d told you you were being so good.”

She looked up at him again. There was so much fear in his eyes, and disappointment. 

“I will grant you this one slip-up,” she said carefully. “Because I slipped-up with the safeword conversation. It only seems fair.”  _ You don’t have to justify it _ .  _ Yours was bigger than his by far. _

“Thank you, sir,” he said, his voice shaking. She palmed his cock again, up and down. She didn’t lick him again. 

She let go of his dick at last and picked up the rope again. She took a deep breath.  _ You can do this _ .

“Tell me if this is too tight in a way that is unbearable,” she told him. “Safeword if you’d prefer.”

“Yes, sir.”

And she began to wrap the rope around his cock. Nothing over the top. Just one loop at the base that she then used to ground the knots that would go around his thighs. He was breathing hard again and she looked up at him. His eyes are bright. Too bright.

She frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“You look like you’re about to cry.”

“I’m not, sir.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you lying to me?”

He blinked at her for a long moment. “I don’t like disappointing you.”

She ran her hand along his cock again. “You’re not disappointing me.”

“But I did.”

“And I told you I was letting it slide and we continued.”

He blinked at her for a long while.  _ Did your last Dom hold your fuckups against you? When they chastised you, did it linger? _

Ahsoka made it clear, always, that chastisement wasn’t to linger. It was clear, and direct, and then you moved on. It lingered perhaps in the pain of a strap against your ass, or the yearning of an orgasm you weren’t allowed to crest, but emotionally it stayed in the past.

“You did, sir,” he agreed at last. She rubbed his cock again and his eyelids fluttered for a second, but he didn’t close his eyes. 

“I don’t know what you’ve experienced in the past,” she said. “But when I say that I am letting something slide, I am letting it slide. It only comes back if it repeats itself and becomes a pattern. But it’s not a pattern.” She leaned her head forward slowly so he could prepare himself and sure enough, his hips were still as stone when she licked a long hot stripe along his shaft. She swirled her tongue against his tip. His precum tasted tangy, and salty, and wonderful. “Good boy,” she whispered and he shivered again. She looked up at him. His eyes were still bright. He licked his lips again.

“It’s hot in here,” Rey commented, standing and tugging her shirt up over her head. “There, that’s better.”

His gaze was still downcast, looking at where her belly button was, and not at her breasts. For a moment, she considered telling him to look at her. But no—let him want to for a while. Let him yearn. Let him know his reward. He’ll catch enough out of his peripheral vision. 

She stood back and admired her work. He looked stunning, all trussed up like this. There was some sweat on his chest, on his upper lip, and he was breathing as steadily as he could. “Do you know how good you look right now?” she asked. 

“No, sir,” he replied.

She hooked her finger under one of the ropes and pulled him forward. She hadn’t tied his lower legs, but with his thighs tied the way they were, his movement was definitely restricted. She heard the way his breath caught as the rope rubbed against his cock. 

She stepped behind him, turning him slightly. There was a mirror on the back of her bedroom door. “Look,” she told him, and his gaze shot up. He stared at himself. 

“So beautiful,” she told him, tracing the diamond patterns of the rope across his chest. She rubbed her breasts lightly against his arms, tied behind her back. “Do you like how it looks?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you like best?”

He paused, considering. “I like it all, but I like how it feels around my cock best, sir.”

“Not too tight.”

“It’s perfect.”

She reached a hand down, slowly again—she didn’t want to push him, make him afraid—and cupped his balls, rolling them between her fingers. She could feel him trembling, trying to withhold a groan. “I like it when you make noises,” she told him. “There may be times when I tell you to remain silent but—”

He moaned softly, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

“—now is not the time for that. I want you to feel good in my ropes, Kylo. I want you to see what I see when I look at you.” Her hand left his balls and traveled along his shaft instead. “I want you to feel what I feel when I look at you like this. I am pleased, Kylo.”

He was whimpering now. Her thong was unbearably damp, but she would wait. She had to.

She’d planned, loosely, somewhere in some dark corner of her mind, to hold off making him come. She’d planned to sit on his face for a bit and then suck him off.

That plan was gone now, though as wordless noises of pleasure filled her room. She didn’t want them to stop. Or if they stopped, she wanted it to be with a cry.

“Please sir,” he whimpered. “Please, may I—”

“Come,” she told him and he cried out and spurted across her bedroom floor. Some of it hit the mirror. He was shaking and trembling and flushed and beautiful, but he didn't sag after his release. He stood perfectly still in his ropes as Rey let go of his penis. Today was not a day she particularly wanted to test his post-orgasmic sensitivity. She felt like he was too on edge for that. He didn’t know her yet, didn’t trust her. 

She began to unwrap him. Slowly, she traced the lines the rope pressed into his skin, trailed little kisses along them. She looked up to see him watching her. His face seemed lighter now that he’d come. She didn’t see any shade of fear there.  _ I won’t hurt you,  _ she promised him silently. 

When he was fully unbound, she pressed on his shoulders and he sat down on her bed. 

“You’ve pleased me,” she repeated. He didn’t respond. He just stared at her. She watched as his gaze flitted from her eyes to her lips and back again. She watched as the flush slowly left his cheeks. “Can you do one more thing for me?”

“Yes, sir,” he said at once.

“Lie back.” He did at once.

She unzipped her own pants and shucked them down her legs, then climbed onto the bed and straddled his chest. “Look at me.” He looked at her face. She snorted. “Look at my  _ body _ .”

He did, his gaze dripping from her breasts in their black lace to the black lace thong. His eyes danced across her stomach, back to her chest, back to her cunt. “May I touch you, sir?” he asked quietly. 

“Yes,” she replied, and his hands trailed up her hips, up the sides of her ribcage. They cupped her breasts and she closed her eyes and sighed. She rocked her hips against his chest. She’ll be wet until next Tuesday and yes—yes she has to come. She’d wondered if maybe she wouldn’t, if maybe it would be pushing too far.

“Make me come,” she tells him. “You choose how.”

She wanted him to pull her hips towards his face, or maybe—miraculously—his refractory period would have been spent and he’d be hard again, but instead he slipped her thong aside and began to rub at her clit. His fingers were—unexpectedly—unpracticed. Almost like he didn’t quite know what to do with them. He dipped them into her, but when he curled them, it wasn’t the right angle to hit her g-spot—not even close. 

“Like you’re beckoning to me,” she told him and he adjusted. She hissed. “Yes, like that. You learn quickly, don’t you?”

“I try, sir.”

He tried thumbing her clit. At least he seemed to know where it was, even if the gesture wasn’t graceful. She inhaled sharply. “Lighter,” she said. “Less digging, more circling.”

“Sorry, sir.”

_ Were his past Doms men?  _ There was no way another Domme would have let him finger her like this. He was learning fast but ten years of doing this to women would have had her melting already instead of wondering what the hell he was doing. She was glad that he hadn’t tried to give her oral. That would have been unbelievably disappointing, probably.

He did get her there in the end. He did notice when she sighed, when she grinded more intensely. She told him when she liked something, but she knew he was watching her reactions closely. That pleased her.  _ I don’t mind teaching him, so long as he’s willing to learn.  _ And he seemed willing.

The orgasm shot through her, sending her heart racing and her muscles clenching around his fingers. The warm air of her room felt cool in her throat as she gasped for air and grabbed Kylo’s shoulders to keep from falling over. 

When she did climb off him at last, she let herself flop over on the bed. “End scene,” she said to him. He nodded and shifted slightly, curling onto his side to look at her. 

“Thoughts?” she asked him.

He blinked at her.

“Thoughts?” he asked her as though confused.

“What did you think?”

He blinked at her again. “It was good,” he said at last.

She raised an eyebrow. “Good? What could have been better.”

He swallowed.

“Speak freely,” she told him. “We can’t do this if you’re not honest with me.”

“I could have been better,” he said at last and she felt her eyes widen in surprise. “I disappointed you. I—” he flushed. “You were patient with me while I learned what you liked.”

Rey stared at him, wondering what to tackle first. She decided the easier thing. “Have you been with women before?”

“My previous master was a man,” he replied. “And when he shared me, it was with other men.”

“And outside of the lifestyle?”

He shook his head. 

“Are you gay?”

He shook his head. “Bisexual,” he replied quietly and there was nervousness in his eyes. 

“Me too,” Rey shrugged and he relaxed almost at once. 

“Sometimes people think I’m lying when I say that,” he told her.

“Yeah, I know,” she snorted. She ran a hand along his wrist. “It’s stupid.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It is. I just—” He cut himself off and flushed.

“Speak freely,” she repeated. 

But he didn’t say anything else. She sighed. “Your not having been with a woman before doesn’t trouble me so long as you’re willing to learn. Which you are, I assume, because that’s part of what this is.”

He nodded. “I am willing to learn.” But she heard something entirely different.  _ I’m eager to learn, sir. _

She smiled at him. “What could have been better?” she asked and he went still again. “I’m not asking what you could have done better,” she added. “I’m asking what I could have done better? Apart from talking about safewords before we started play.”

He blinked at her. 

“You were perfect,” he told her quietly. “I—You were perfect.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends,
> 
> Starting to post this fic! It's mostly written at this point and the way I'm thinking about updates are "whenever I finish a chapter, I'll post the next one," and then post on whim when I finish the full draft.
> 
> On a more serious note: This fic is very much about abuse recovery. I'm a little more jokey about it in the tags than I am in the fic itself, and I want people to be prepared for that. I'll flag specific trigger warnings in end notes when they are relevant, but there's sort of a blanket warning for anxiety in any Ben POV that there is. He was definitely abused and you will see traces of emotional abuse in the vast majority of his sections.
> 
> On that note: end notes with some trigger warnings.

His heart hammered in his chest as he let himself into his apartment. His hands shook and he had trouble getting the key into the lock on the first two tries. He didn’t turn on his lights, though it was dark out now, and he made a beeline to the kitchen countertop where he kept the cheap whiskey he bought for himself for moments like this.

He downed the glass in one gulp, swallowing, letting the cheapness of the alcohol burn through his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut and just tried to breathe.

_ It was good,  _ he told himself.  _ It was good, she said I was good. _

So why was he shaking?

The answer came unbidden to his head in his Master’s voice.  _ Because you are nothing. You’ll never be worthy of me, of my crop, of my cock. You are worthless.  _

He shuddered as though he’d been strapped and poured himself another glass of whiskey. He tried to focus on her voice.  _ You’ve been so good.  _ But his Master’s voice was already laughing in his ear. 

_ Pitiful. Believing her. You are truly pitiful. _

Another glass of whisky, this time accompanied by a slow slide to the floor.

It had been nearly a year since he’d last been in his Master’s dungeon. A year since he’d gotten the text message  _ I have found a different submissive, one who is worthy of me,  _ and then learned that his number had been blocked. A year of reeling and drinking and applying to how many different new Dominants but getting his applications turned down. He knew why.

He’d been to clubs with his Master. He’d been to play parties with his Master. His Master’s influence in this circle extended far, its grip was iron. If his Master didn’t want him to serve anyone, no one would let him serve them. He’d fucking lucked into her because she was new to the area and hadn’t ever even heard either of his names before. 

_ I am pleased, Kylo _ , she’d murmured, her breath hot against his bare skin, her voice softer than silk, smoother than velvet.  _ Do you know what happens to good boys? _

His hands were still shaking. He knocked his head back against the cabinet behind him. It didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t tell if that was because he’d drunk enough that he’d numbed himself the way he wanted to.  _ Please,  _ he begged her, even though she wasn’t there.  _ Please. Please. Please. _

They had agreed to think for a few days.  _ I’m pleased,  _ she had said,  _ But I don’t want either of us to make a rash decision. Mull it over, make sure you liked your time with me, and I’ll do the same. We’ll talk Friday morning. If we agree to continue, we’ll spend the weekend together starting Friday night. _

He wanted it to be Friday. He wouldn’t be able to bear this—waiting to find out if he had a future or not because this was his life, had been his life. What else was he supposed to do?  _ Please _ .  _ I’ll be good, I swear. I’ll serve you so well. I’ll give you everything. You can take whatever you want from me. Please. _

He thought about her tits in that bra, the way the dusty rose of her nipples peeked through the black lace. He thought of the thong, and the waxed landing strip of hair just above her cunt. He thought of how warm she’d been around his fingers. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d been with a woman. It was just the first time he’d been with a woman and hadn’t been bound to a stool and gagged. He hadn’t even known the name of the woman his Master had invited to ride him, he’d just heard her whimpering, telling him how big he was while his Master had flogged him from behind. She’d been so hot and wet around his cock, and it had felt amazing, so different from his own hand, or his Master’s mouth. For all the time his Master had fucked his ass, he’d never once penetrated his Master’s. He’d heard other submissives using words like  _ tight _ and  _ consuming _ but he’d never experienced that before. Would she want him to fuck her ass? Would she let him? He expected she’d want him to penetrate her cunt but—

He groaned.

He couldn’t let himself think about it; he couldn’t think of anything else. Friday was so far away.

He just wanted this to be over, this not knowing, this sense of ostracism, of shame. He didn’t even know what he’d done wrong.  _ It wasn’t that you did anything wrong,  _ his Master’s voice hissed.  _ It’s that you were never enough.  _

He reached for the whisky to fill his glass again.

_ You’re being so good for me. _

His hand stilled. 

He’d had enough, that was for sure. What would she think if she did want to collar him and learned that he’d gotten drunk on his kitchen floor the same day she’d tied him up and made him come at the sight of his own reflection? For that, he’d probably earn a chastisement. She didn’t seem like she wanted to hurt him, said she had no interest in pain play, but he’d deserve it if she did spank him, or beat him with a cane, or strap his ass. 

He always deserved it.

He stood up, swaying slightly. He filled the tumbler with water and drank it quickly. He repeated the action three times. 

_ Please,  _ he thought at her ghost.  _ I’ll be so good. I promise. I’ll be good for you. You saw how good I could be. _

Master had always hated begging. He’d said it was a sign of weakness.

But he’d always been too weak for his Master. He’d known that, he’d tried to get rid of it, to be perfect, to take everything that his Master gave him. 

But it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t enough.

He never would be.

-

“Rey, he sounds like a walking Red Flag.” Ahsoka’s voice was firm on the other end of the phone. “Anyone who has that reaction to the implication of pain has no place trying to sub. He needs therapy. Whoever his previous Dom was sounds fucked in the head.”

“I know,” Rey said, sighing and rubbing her head. She was lying in her bed. Her pillow still smelled a little bit of Kylo. She’d cleaned his cum off the mirror and off her hardwood floor. 

“I know you want a collared sub,” Ahsoka continued, “I know it’s been hard to find one for you, but that doesn’t mean you should take the first one you try out. Especially one who needs help. Sex doesn’t fix people. Domination doesn’t fix people.”

“He was good though,” Rey tried, and she heard Ahsoka let out a humorless laugh. “No—I mean. When he wasn’t clearly…” She didn’t know what words to use here. “He was good. He was so responsive and he wanted to learn.” And his eyes. They were so beautiful. And he’d called her perfect.  _ Her _ . Mr. ten-years-experience calling Ms. never-had-a-sub perfect. 

“Rey,” Ahsoka sighed. “Do I have to drive down there and flog you? This is a bad idea.”

“What if it’s not?” Rey responded stubbornly. “What if it’s a good idea. What if I’m what he needs—a gentler hand than whoever he was with before.”

“Listen, I can pity his situation and what he went through, but I’d be remiss—both as a Domme and a mentor—if I didn’t tell you about my reservations. I can’t let you make a mistake like this for your first collared sub, Rey. I can’t.”

“You can,” Rey pointed out. “Because I’m not your sub anymore. You can’t make me do anything.”

“Rey—” Ahsoka began, but Rey cut her off.

“No, I’m serious. It was a good session. He held it together. There’s clearly some shit there where I need to be careful and I’ll be careful—just as I would be with any new submissive. Everyone’s got their limitations. He at least probably knows what his are, which is better than me finding someone who has no experience at all. You told me I shouldn’t do  _ that _ for my first submissive either, and so far everyone with experience I’ve come across ends up with more experienced Doms than me and—”

“There has to be someone in the middle between someone with no experience and ten-years-experience-but-alarm-bells,” Ahsoka replied stubbornly.

“Well, if you find one and they agree, I’ll go for it, but so far none of them have stuck around.”

There was a pause and she could tell that Ahsoka was fuming. Rey had always been a bratty sub, which had been fine in a playroom context, but she could tell it was chafing Ahsoka now as she refused to let her own instinct bow before Ahsoka’s. She recognized what Ahsoka was saying; she didn’t even think she was wrong to say it. But Ahsoka hadn’t been there, hadn’t felt him try to learn, hadn’t felt him push past his own fears and submit to her the way he wanted—the way she wanted.

“Who was his previous Dom? Did his application say?”

“References upon request,” Rey replied at once. 

Ahsoka hummed, thinking. “I don’t know a lot about the scene in Crait,” she said at last. That much, Rey already knew. Ahsoka had set her up with a friend of a friend, another Domme in the area, right when Rey had moved. Rose had offered to be a listening ear, and even a play partner, if ever Rey had needed one, but so far they hadn’t done much more than text every now and then. “I could do some research, see if anyone’s heard of this Kylo and could tell me more about his Dom.”

“That could be good,” Rey said.

“You’re going to collar him, aren’t you?” Ahsoka said at last. “I can hear that determined edge you get. Fuck, Rey. I just—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Promise you’ll make him go to therapy if it looks like he’ll break? You can’t fix him. A trained professional can try.” Rey didn’t respond right away. “Rey,” Ahsoka said firmly.

“It’s my job to see to his needs, right?” she said at last. “If that means he needs to go to therapy, I’ll see to it that it happens.”

“Good girl,” Ahsoka said. “Don’t question it if you need to. The first sign you see it, do it. Better earlier than too late, and something tells me it’s already too late.”

“I don’t think it is,” Rey flared. She wanted to believe that. Needed to. There was something about him—she didn’t know how to describe it. She wanted to protect him, and wanted him to serve her, she wanted to fuck him, she wanted to hold him—wanted him to hold her. She wanted to see what it looked like when those deep eyes went light with elation. She couldn’t bear to believe that they couldn’t. “It’s never too late.”

“No, but it might mean it’s better for him to steer clear of this lifestyle until he’s had some time to heal. That’s what I meant,” Ahsoka said hastily. 

“We’ll see,” Rey said.

“I guess we will.” Ahsoka did not sound happy about it. 

-

It was Friday morning and Kylo was in the supply closet, his eye on his phone. He was supposed to be reorganizing the swag, since apparently the marketing team couldn’t be fucked to do it, but he couldn’t make himself do it.

He liked the supply closet. He liked that it was small, and contained. It was a place to hide when the world was too much, a refuge. And the world was too much right now. A future, solid and clear, was just within grasp--the stability he’d longed for, the life he knew. Or it would slip through his fingers and he’d fall into an abyss because what was he good for? Nothing. He was good for nothing. Nothing but this. This was all he knew. All he’d known for years.

His mind spun, and the walls of the marketing closet were just far enough away from him so that he wasn’t claustrophobic, but close enough that he could feel safe. He was safe for now. No one would find him here. No one ever went in the supply closet except the marketing team because who, in this age of computers, needs pads of papers or pens anymore? He felt calm in here. Or rather, almost calm.

His phone buzzed in his hand and he saw a text message from an unknown number.

_ Give me five. I’m running behind. _

He hadn’t saved her number into his phone yet. It felt like a jinx if he did.  _ Rey _ would be presumptive, she hadn’t seemed interested in being called  _ Mistress _ , and  _ Sir…  _ he didn’t know if that was a trial formality or if she’d actually want him to call her Sir.

He wouldn’t mind if she did.

He was used to that, had muscle memory for years. 

_ Of course _ , he replied to her text when he realized he hadn’t. 

_ Thanks _ .

He swallowed and looked around. There were backpacks. Always with the fucking backpacks. New hires loved them, but they were in the middle of a hiring freeze. Middle management was pissed as shit about it. It didn’t make much of a difference to him though. Except that they had a new backpack order and they hadn’t gone through the old backpacks and now he had to figure out where to put the backpacks.

His phone buzzed in his hand again, this time repeatedly. It was ringing.

“Hello?” he rasped, clearing his throat.

“Sorry about that,” she said. Her voice was totally unreadable. “Meeting ran long.”

“No worries,” he lied. He felt like he was going to be sick.

“So, I’ve been thinking and I have a few questions,” she said, jumping straight to the point and continuing before his head could spin out too much. “You said you weren’t interested in pain play—what constitutes pain for you? What about things like floggers? Straps? Canes? You had all of them checked, but I want to make sure I’m clear on what your limitations are.”

He blinked. “Those are fine,” he said. “Sir,” he added.

“So you don’t mind light pain, just not pain play?”

“Yes,” he said. “I don’t—” She hadn’t collared him yet. What if she didn’t want to hear it? His Master never had. 

“You don’t what?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. I want to make sure that I understand your needs if we’re going to do this.”

_ If we’re going to do this. _

So she was considering it. But of course she was, if she was asking questions. His heart beat a little faster. The supply closet seemed a little brighter. 

“Kylo? You there?”

“Sorry,” he said at once. He took a deep breath. Every instinct in his body was telling him not to say it, but she had asked him, and he couldn’t just not answer. She wasn’t accepting a non-answer. “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

Silence stretched between them and panic raced in his chest. He shouldn’t have said that about his Master. He shouldn’t have. He’d know, and he’d make him pay for it. He never suffered disloyalty, never suffered embarrassment. 

“Then you won’t hurt,” Rey said at last. “We’ll figure it out. If I’m pushing you towards that, you  _ yellow _ , ok?” He nodded. Green meant go, yellow meant slow down, red meant stop. He’d heard other subs talking about it, had witnessed it at parties. His Master’s safewords had been different. That is—when his Master had safewords. 

_ That should have been the first sign, _ some voice in his head hissed angrily but he shut it down. He didn’t think bad things about his Master. His Master was right: he was a disappointment. 

“Kylo?”

“Yes, sorry—bad reception in here,” he lied. “I’ll yellow.”

“Good,” she said. “I’ll have to figure out how to chastise you without pain, but we’ll figure that out. I suppose you did say you were fine with orgasm withholding.”

He swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“But hopefully I won’t need to. You were very good last weekend.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Do you have any reservations or concerns for me?” she asked. 

“No, sir.”

He couldn’t breathe. Was this happening? 

“All right, then if you’re fine with it, I’d love to see you this weekend.”

“I would like that very much.”

“I’ll email you some guidelines of what I expect from you regularly, and what you should expect from me,” she said, sounding positively businesslike. “Please be sure to review them before you come over tonight. I’ll expect you at six-thirty and you should plan to be with me until Sunday afternoon.”

“I will, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“See you tonight.”

“See you tonight, sir.”

The phone line went dead and he sagged, feeling as though his entire spirit had left his body, had ascended. She  _ did _ want him. He had not disappointed, or at least not so thoroughly as to turn her away. He  _ wasn’t _ a disappointment. 

He wasn’t broken.

He would be so good for her. He would. 

He would get through this. 

-

Rey reread the email four times before hitting send. She’d been distracted while writing it. Finn was trying to convince her to come out for drinks. “It’s Friday,” he’d complained at her, standing in the door of her office. “You can stop working for a minute. It’ll sit over the weekend.”

“I don’t want to think about this over the weekend,” Rey lied.

“You work too much.”

“Drinks on Monday?” she asked him. 

“Why the hell is Monday better than Friday?”

“Because I’ll need to drink to get through the week.”

“Suit yourself.” He turned away from her and called down the hall, “Dameron, you game?”

She was trying to be firm but gentle, which was something she struggled with at work to begin with.  _ You need to soften your tone, Rey. You’re too forceful,  _ had been feedback on last year’s review. Honest to god feedback. As though whoever had submitted that to her manager hadn’t realized they were being sexist as fuck.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t care about being firm with Kylo.  _ He’s a sub. He should like it. Or at least be used to it. _

But she’d heard him trying to hide how dry his voice was on that call. She’d heard those long silences as he’d wondered if he could tell her he didn’t like pain.  _ He’s a walking red flag.  _ Ahsoka’s voice ran through her mind. 

Rey could guess what he’d been through—a Dom who liked pain and who played head games was possibly the worst thing that could happen to a sub. And even if Kylo wasn’t thinking about it in those terms, if the Dom wasn’t playing by the rules of “Safe,” and “Sane,” there was no way he was playing “Consensual” either. Rey’s gut turned. 

She shook herself. She knew if she tried to put words to it, the Ahsoka voice would get louder. It felt different right now. She couldn’t explain how.

She turned back to her email.

The expected dress code section was straightforward enough. The section detailing how he should take care of his body would be no trouble at all. She’d seen his abs and those weren’t easy to come by. He might even smile at the idea of how basic her direction was on this particular front. She outlined positions she wanted him to stand in, or sit in, or kneel in, she outlined where he could expect to sleep while he was staying at her house.

It wasn’t until she got to the last section that she frowned.

**_Collar_ **

_ You will wear my collar at all times. I will collar you this evening when you arrive.  _

_ While wearing my collar, I expect you to speak of me and to me with deference, even when I am not present. When we are playing, I expect your full submission. I will notify you at the end of a scene when you will have my permission to relax. When we are not in a scene, you should speak freely unless I have told you otherwise. _

She reread it over and over again. Ahsoka had warned her that this might be too generous. Firm boundaries might be better for him—and certainly better for her. They would keep her separate from whatever it was he was going through. But already, she was worried that he was withholding from her. He shouldn’t be compelled to share more than he was comfortable with, of course, but he should also have it clearly spelled out that he would never be punished for his honesty. 

In fact…

_ I will never punish you for your honesty, even if you are telling me something you think I won’t like to hear. I will always appreciate it, even when it stings because I know your honesty, like your submission, is a gift. _

She scratched her forehead as she reread it. Would he believe it? 

_ He will if you are firm with it,  _ she told herself.  _ If he sees you living it, he’ll trust you. _

She glanced at the clock in the upper corner of her screen. She knew that Finn liked to fuck off early on Fridays, but it was later than she thought—nearly four. She wanted Kylo to have enough time to read it at least once.

It would have to do.

She hit send.

-

He stood on her doorstep at six twenty-five, breathing in and out. He was wearing what she’d asked him to: the same black jeans he’d worn earlier that week, a button down shirt. He had showered and shaved, and had brought an overnight bag that he was to leave at her place during the week so as not to worry in future about the change of clothes. The simple fact that there were clothes… His Master had had him naked for most of their sessions. 

_ Maybe she’s jittery,  _ he thought. He got that vibe from her during their first session. Now that she’d agreed to collar him, it was like everything was different. He could see her more clearly, could see her nervousness, the newness of all this.

_ I’ll have to be careful with her,  _ he thought before laughing at himself. She was his Domme—his! He’d found one at last!—who the fuck was he to think that he would have any say over how this went? 

She opened the door at precisely six thirty to find him standing there, his arms at his side, his gaze downcast. She was wearing stiletto heels. Black ones. His mouth went dry.

“Well aren’t you a sight?” she purred. “Come in then.” He did not look up at her. She hadn’t given him permission to. “Leave the bag by the door,” she said and he deposited it before following her into the living room. “Kneel.”

He did.

“Look at me.”

He did. She was dressed for work still, which meant that those heels—she’d been wearing them all day. Would she want a foot massage? He should offer her one, when she gave him permission to speak. She was so beautiful.

“I don’t have a traditional collar for you,” she said. “I hope you won’t mind.”

_ She said you could speak freely in the house. _

_ But this is her collaring you. You don’t want to fuck it up right now. _

He kept his mouth shut. 

She took one of her hands in the other and took off a ring that she wore around her thumb. It was simple, and broad, with some sort of carved pattern along the wide top of the silver band. 

“Give me your right hand,” she said and he extended it to her. She took his pinky, and slid the ring on. 

It fit perfectly.

“I wanted something that wouldn’t necessarily draw attention to you in public,” she said as he looked at it. “I hope you like it.”

He looked back up at her. “I do, sir,” he said.

She smiled, and her hazel eyes—they gleamed almost gold. She was so pretty. And he liked her looking at him like that, like she was glad he was there, like she didn’t think he was a waste of space.

“Good,” she said, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Welcome to the weekend, Kylo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for alcohol as a coping mechanism through the entire first scene, panic/anxiety (as mentioned above) in the entire first and third scene.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, November sure has been something, hasn't it?
> 
> I'm sorry I haven't gotten to reply to reviews. Spoons are low. They mean so much to me and I'm so glad you're enjoying this story.

The first thing she had him do was draw her a bath. He poured her bath salts into the water, testing the temperature of the water with his hand as he did. Then he turned to her.

“Undress me,” she told him.

“Yes, sir.” He helped her unbutton her shirt, folding it carefully and placing it on top of the toilet before turning back to her. His eyes widened when he saw her bra, and she saw pleasure and also a shade of fear there.  _ Has he ever taken a bra off? _

She arched an eyebrow at him and he flushed. She did not turn around and he made the classic mistake of trying to take it off with both his hands. “One hand,” she told him, patting his left. He dropped his right down to his side and took a slow breath. “Press one finger onto the side with the eyes.” He did so. “Then pop the hook—”

It sprang loose. “Good boy.”

He slipped it down her arms, then folded it carefully as well. Then he set himself to the skirt she’d worn to work, her underwear—less sexy than last weekend’s but she found she didn’t really care. It wasn’t his place to judge her underwear, even if it was plain, old cotton. 

She sighed when she settled into the bath, looking up at him.  _ Should I have him join me? _

_ No. Not yet. _

His eyes were downcast, and she wondered if he was trying to sneak a look at her. He probably could if he wanted to. Or at least see her breasts out of the corner of his eye.

“Go make dinner,” she told him as she settled into the water. 

“Yes, sir,” he said and disappeared.

Rey sighed. 

She was more nervous than she wanted to be. She wanted to be excited. She wanted to feel the release of all this, the freedom that came from having a collared sub. The ring looked good on him. It was one she’d found when she was eighteen in the grass of the community college she’d gone to between her two jobs, just sitting there in the dirt, thrown away. Beautiful and yet uncared for. 

It felt perfect for Kylo because of that.

_ Calm down. He wants you to be his Domme. _

_ Or does he just want anyone to be his Dom? _

She hated that thought more than a little. She didn’t know how many Doms Kylo had applied for, just that the agent had connected his profile to hers. It shouldn’t matter. It really shouldn’t.

Except if he was just trying to get any Dom that would take him, that meant he didn’t really care if it was her. Right?

_ Don’t go down this road,  _ she thought as she reached for her loofa and squeezed some of her soap into it.  _ Don’t. This weekend is about his needs, and yours. Not about wants.  _

If she was good enough to him, he’d never want any other Dom. She’d wash the memory of his other Dom right out of him. 

_ Don’t try and fix him, Rey, _ she could practically hear Ahsoka warn.

_ I’m not trying to. I’m going to make him come so hard he can’t remember his own name. Make him want more from me and only me. _

But the thought was chilling.

She pressed her hands to her face. That unique sense of wanting, that sense of being the only person who could fulfill his needs—how could she achieve that if she wanted him to be free of the last person who’d done that to him? Used him and abused him. She stared around her bathroom.

_ Ok, _ she thought firmly to herself.  _ So, you can’t think of it that way. _

But how could she think about it? If she was just trying to make him feel good? If part of their agreement was that she was the only one who could, only one who would? If she was supposed to hold him in her hands so that he didn’t break more?

_ You’re trying to protect him,  _ she thought.  _ Protect him from himself, and others who might harm him. Protect him from you if you can too.  _ That helped. She was the one taking care of him—

Except that was what Ahsoka had told her not to do.

She groaned and got out of the bathtub. She was thinking too hard. 

She got out of the bath, toweled herself off, and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like a nervous wreck. It had been a long day, and if she was careful, this weekend would be good—for both of them. She could be careful. She could be good.

He’d said she was perfect last weekend.

That settled her nerves. 

She did her makeup and blow-dried her hair, before going into the bedroom to find a lacy corset to wear.  _ More practice with hook and eye,  _ she thought, amused, as she fastened herself into it. She found garters to attach to the clips that hung from the bottom of the corset, then paused. No, she didn’t think she’d wear any panties. She didn’t have any that matched this corset and she kind of liked the aesthetic—all dolled up except for her cunt. She found a pair of heels to complete the outfit then went to her dining room. 

Kylo was standing behind her seat, her food already plated and waiting for her. His head was downcast once again.  _ I could have him stand behind me while I eat, stare down my cleavage.  _

But instead she said, “Lovely. Fix yourself a plate and join me.”

He did so silently. Rey waited for him to return before starting to eat.

He’d made a risotto, cheesy and creamy with shrimp and lemon and basil. He’d also made a salad with the fresh veggies that had come from her CSA earlier that day.

When he sat down he took a slow breath as Rey began to eat. He did not start. 

“Eat,” she told him, and he did. She wondered if that was something she should have made clear: if she invited him to eat with her, he should feel free to eat. Or was that something that other Doms did? Make the sub wait for permission before they could begin? That seemed like a Dom thing. 

“Look at me,” she said, and he looked up. She saw his eyes flicker for a moment, down to her breasts before he flushed and looked up at her face. She smiled. “Like what you see?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to look.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “I wanted you to look.”

His spoonful of risotto froze halfway to his lips. Slowly, he dropped his gaze down to her chest. Was she imagining it, or did his eyes dilate?

“Keep eating,” she told him and he did, not taking his eyes off her chest. Yes, he was definitely flushing now. His ears were getting red, his cheeks. He licked his lips.

Rey took another bite of her risotto. “Delicious.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. 

She smirked.  _ Ok, so even if he did want any Dom, he’s still happy to be here.  _ She could live with that. 

-

He stood in her bedroom, looking down at his feet, his hands at his side. He breathed in and out slowly.

Everything was familiar and yet nothing was the same. He felt both wrong-footed and completely balanced.

She’d collared him. It was a strange collar. He didn’t know anyone who wore a ring for a collar. Rings meant something else for most people, something complicated in a way that he never thought he’d ever have to process. Why would he? His Master—

He swallowed.

He probably shouldn’t think of his Master as his Master, now that she’d collared him. If he ever let it slip to her, she would be upset. She said she didn’t want to hurt him, even when chastising but he couldn’t imagine it not getting painful if he called someone else his Master while he wore her ring.

She’d taken it off her own finger. He hadn’t clocked the weekend prior that her hands were that much smaller than his own, but he shouldn’t be surprised. He was big. Too big. He took up too much space. And his pinky was about the size of her thumb.

He swallowed. 

_ Breathe _ , he told himself.

His hands were at his side and he could see his collar.

He’d never really been able to look at it before. He’d always worn it around his neck, and only saw it in the mirror.  _ You like metal?  _ People would ask him whenever they saw it. What else were they supposed to ask—a leather choker with a chrome ring at the front for when his Master put him on a leash. Yeah—he looked like a headbanger, not a submissive. It had worked for him. 

He rubbed his thumb along the ridges patterned silver. 

She wouldn’t be able to tighten it on him, the way his Master had done sometimes. 

“Lovely.” 

Only practice kept him from jumping out of his own damn skin. He hadn’t heard her come in—impressive since she was still wearing those heels of hers. Quietly she crossed the room and came to stand just in front of him. The view down her cleavage in that corset—it was something else. And the fact that she wasn’t wearing any panties at all, that he could just see her, that she was just showing herself to him…

His mouth was dry, he felt a little overheated. His thumb was still pressed against her collar.

_ My— _

He had forgotten to ask her what he should call her. His Mistress? His… his what? He didn’t dare call her  _ Rey _ even though there was something warm in that name, like the warmth of the silver against his pinky. 

And then he couldn’t see anything at all.

She was tying something behind his head, something soft. 

“What are your safewords?” she asked him firmly.

“Green, Yellow, Red, sir,” he replied at once.

“Good boy. Off with these.” She plucked at his shirt and trousers and he moved at once to take them off. It was a little awkward because he couldn’t see, but he supposed he didn’t have to see to take them off. It wasn’t like taking off her bra earlier.

When he was naked, she steered him towards her bed, lying him down on his back. She took first his wrists and then his ankles and tied them to the bedposts. 

“No noise, except to safeword,” she told him. “You can do that for me, right?”

How many times had his Master grabbed his face when he’d responded to that question? He remained silent.

“Good boy,” she told him and he shivered. He liked it when she called him good. It made him feel like he was, like he could be. Like he wasn’t the disappointment he knew, down in the depths of his soul, that he was.

He recognized the wartenberg wheel at once, the way it prickled lightly across his skin. What he wasn’t expecting was for her to straddle him so that he could feel her wet cunt on his lower abdomen, hot and soft. 

He suppressed a groan.

Sure, the wartenberg wheel was titillating, each of its little spikes crossing his skin. She was circling his nipple with it now. Not exactly a new feeling for him, after all these years. Her cunt though? The smoothness of her skin, the way he could feel her arousal? He’d never felt anything like that ever before. 

“When you bite your lip, you make me want to bite it,” she said. He swallowed and tried not to imagine her leaning forward in that corset, her breasts brushing his chest, her cunt rubbing against his stomach, her lips pressing to his.

Tried, and failed.

Blood was flowing steadily to his groin now, and he was growing harder by the second. 

“You like this?” she asked him, shifting her hips so that his dick was rubbing along the crack of her ass. He stifled another groan. 

It was positively gentle compared to some of the things his Master had made him do. It wasn’t vanilla, but it was… more vanilla than most of what he had come to think this was like. But he couldn’t calm his heart the second she bent to suck his nipple between her teeth. He felt like he couldn’t breathe when she shifted down so she was straddling his thigh, grinding against it with that hot, slick cunt of hers. 

She ran the wheel along his dick and it felt like fire—the good kind—was erupting across his every nerve as he began to slow his breath, to steady it, to begin to recite state capitals alphabetically, then by population size to keep himself from coming just from the sound of her as she ground herself against his fucking thigh. Her legs brushed against his shaft, against his balls, and he could imagine the way she looked, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted.

He could not come like this. He couldn’t. How the fuck was he this close? Surely a year hadn’t destroyed his stamina this much, had it? He’d come fast last week, but he always came fast when he was tied up.

He was tied up now.

That could be it.

She was panting, moaning, and he felt her fingers against his thigh. She was rubbing them against her clit if he had to guess.

Why against his thigh? Why not ride his cock? Why not make him—

She was coming, though, with the same long groan she’d made when he’d brought her off the weekend before. She was coming on his thigh, taking pleasure in his body, and her cunt was flexing against his thigh and for the first time since she’d tied him up, he felt as though he was going to test the bonds holding him because he wanted to reach for her—to touch her. 

But he couldn’t. 

He hadn’t realized he’d balled his hands into fists until he heard her chuckle and run the wheel up his arm and across his knuckles. “Why the fists?” she asked and he could tell from her voice that she knew. He relaxed his hands and she hummed her approval.

Her arm brushed against his cock as she shifted once again, straddling his lower stomach again but this time, facing his cock. 

“You’ve been such a good boy,” she told him again. 

Then her lips were on him and there weren’t enough capitals in the world for him to go through by population size that would make him last.

-

It wasn’t like anything he’d experienced before, this first weekend with her. She was firm, she gave him explicit instructions to follow, guidelines to wrap himself around, but there was something…

Soft was the wrong word. She wasn’t soft with him. She tested him, actually. Tested him a lot. It wasn’t just being blindfolded with the wartenberg wheel, it was her putting a cock ring on him and making him come and then playing with him while he was still too sensitive. She sucked hickies into his skin because she could and because she wanted to. She kissed each one with freshly painted lips so they had the blood red halo of her lips around each one.  _ Mine _ they seemed to say.

No one had ever sucked a hickey onto him before. When he’d been bruised before, the source was never something as sweet as her lips. He was fascinated by the look of it against his skin, the way the purpling pink contrasted so sharply with his chest.

He was lying on a pallet she’d made for him on the floor of her bedroom, resting. It felt like his heart was still hammering in his chest, even though they’d stopped play a while before. His heart was hammering, and were it not for the lipsticked hickeys distracting him on his arm, he’d probably be blissfully blank. That was always what he liked best—the quiet after a scene when his mind didn’t have anything more to say. 

He kept tracing the ring, running his thumb over it. She wasn’t disappointed in him. She wasn’t going to kick him out of her house. She wanted to touch him, and use him. She’d grinded herself against his leg, she’d fingered herself while kissing and licking his skin. He wondered vaguely if she was trying not to overwhelm him and that was why she hadn’t ridden him yet. Or maybe she was saving the best for last. He wanted to feel her, tight and hot and slick around him. He wanted her to come on his dick and then pet his hair and tell him how good he was. That seemed like something she’d do.

_ Going soft,  _ his Master whispered in his ear.  _ So desperate for praise. So desperate for approval. Her approval doesn’t matter. Mine does. _

And just like that the blissful calm he’d been feeling vanished. Just like that he felt cold and sticky with sweat. She had told him to rest, and he’d been content to do so, but now he wanted a shower. 

Maybe his Master was right—he was weak to want, weak to hope. He would never be worthy of—

The door to the bedroom opened and she slipped in. She was still naked, her hair tied back in a long braid. 

It was jarring, how quickly he relaxed at the sight of her. She was going to need him for something else and he’d be able to put all those thoughts at bay.

“Keep resting,” she told him gently as she crossed to her dresser. “I need to run out for something.”

“Yes, sir,” he said before catching himself. “Sir, can I take a shower?”

“Yes, of course,” she said without batting an eyelash. “Do whatever will relax you.”

Then she was gone. He sat up and stretched. He wasn’t sore. She’d rubbed his muscles the night before after she’d tied him up. They weren’t even stiff. 

He climbed into her shower and turned on the water. Her water pressure was great. But more importantly, the scent that filled the air as he rubbed some of her lavender oatmeal soap into a loofa… it was her. It was her, and calming and everything that had made him feel cold and sticky and weak before faded in the scent of it in his nose. Even if her lipstick was washing away, there would still be some trace of her on his skin.

There had never been anything as gentle as lavender in his Master’s house, and his Master wouldn’t have let him shower out of spite because he didn’t suffer Kylo asking for anything.  _ I decide what you want and need. Not you. _

From his Master, he’d only felt shame and fear when he’d said things like that. He wondered what would happen if she said the same.

He imagined her whispering it in his ear, her hand wrapped around his cock.  _ I decide what you want and need. Not you,  _ she murmured as she stroked him. He whimpered.  _ You think you want this now. You think you need this now, but I promise—you don’t. Patience, Kylo. I will give you everything. _

He groaned.

His dick was hard again, and he wasn’t such a fool as to touch himself on his first weekend. She hadn’t exactly told him he couldn’t, but he doubted this fell into the parameters of  _ Do whatever will relax you.  _

If anything, she’d said she’d likely switch to orgasm denial for punishment and if she  _ was _ planning to ride him… he wanted to be able to come. 

So he stared down at his dick, the scent of her swirling in the air around him and he breathed.  _ Just breathe. _

-

She watched him sleep. 

It was ridiculous, really. She’d never felt this particular inclination before. And yet she was watching him sleep.

His face looked more relaxed when he slept. The muscles in his face were less tense and his eyes—

Well, they were closed. She couldn’t see them. Which meant she couldn’t see that guardedness, the dullness that sometimes appeared while he waited, the brightness that appeared whenever she called him  _ good _ .

She’d noticed that right way. It was impossible not to. She was sure, without him telling her, that he’d never been called good before. Or if he was, it was more sparingly than he’d experienced pain or degradation. Not for the first time, and she was sure not for the last time, rage flooded her as she thought about what he must have experienced at the hands of the man he had once called  _ Master _ .

He was going to be gone that afternoon. She’d only known him for a week and already he felt special to her in a way she could never have predicted. She understood why Ahsoka was so protective of her now. After only a week, she didn’t want anything to happen to Kylo. Even if they went their separate ways, she wanted him safe, and happy.

His other Master probably didn’t care what he did now.

Kylo stirred on the pallet and opened a bleary eye.

He watched her. She watched him. 

“Good morning,” she said quietly.

“Morning, sir,” he rasped. 

They ate breakfast in her dining area, some French toast and eggs he’d cooked once he’d bestirred himself from his pallet. 

“Speak freely. How was this weekend?” Rey asked him as she wiped up some maple syrup with her toast and lifted the fork to her lips.

“Very good, sir,” he replied at once. 

“Did anything make you uncomfortable?”

He shook his head. 

“Are you satisfied?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why did you hesitate?” 

He blinked once or twice. “I wanted to consider.”

She could hear the lie in his voice and sighed. “I will give you one more chance not to lie to me, Kylo.” It wasn’t a growl, but it was stern, and it clearly communicated her displeasure because he looked up at her and swallowed and said,

“You didn’t let me touch you, sir.”

She froze.

She’d touched him. She’d touched him plenty. And she’d gotten off. 

But no, she hadn’t let him touch her.

“And you wanted to touch me?” she asked him.

“I did,” he said quietly. “I don’t mind waiting, though. I know you will let me one day. It’s our first weekend. But I wanted to.”

“So it was disappointing.”

“No, it wasn’t—” he paused and she watched him consider his words carefully. “I was disappointed, but it wasn’t disappointing.”

She understood the distinction. She leaned back in her chair. She’d thought to try flogging him today, to see if that would be ok with him. A soft flogger—rabbit fur. Maybe a cock ring. She hadn’t decided.

“Clean up,” she told him. “And meet me in my bedroom when you’re done.”

He got to his feet at once and Rey went into the bathroom. She was wearing a corset, and heels, and garters, and all sorts of things that made her feel sexy and powerful, that made her look the part of a true Domme. 

But she removed them slowly and put them in her lingerie hamper to wash later. She listened to him in the kitchen, then heard him pad quietly to her bedroom. 

Taking a deep breath, she left the bathroom.  _ This could go poorly,  _ a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Ahsoka’s? Or her own?

She shoved it aside and opened her bedroom door.

He was standing there, as naked as she, his eyes downcast, his hands at his sides. 

She approached him, stopping a foot away from him, unsure if she wanted him to look up or not. She decided she did.

“Look at me.” He did at once, his gaze sweeping slowly up her body to rest on her face. “I told you I would never fault you for your honesty,” she said. “I meant it.”

He swallowed. 

“You’ve been such a good boy this weekend, Kylo,” she murmured. Her throat was suddenly very dry. Too dry.  _ Anticipation. _ “And good boys get rewards.”

She watched him swallow again. Was his mouth as dry as hers? His breathing was shaky; so was hers.

“Touch me the way you want to.”

She watched him process the words, watched him wonder if he’d heard them correctly. He raised a hand shakily and palmed her breast. Her whole body erupted in gooseprickles at his touch, a shiver that swept across her skin, hot and cold at once. He thumbed her nipple and she hummed. Her nipples usually weren’t very sensitive. Ahsoka used to clamp them when she wanted them more sensitive for later play because of it. But Kylo’s touch, just one thumb sent a streak of heat from the tip of her nipple straight to her cunt. Was she imagining it or was her nipple stiffening more under his touch, pushing out eagerly towards him?

“You’re so soft,” he whispered, and there was wonder in his voice. His other hand came up to her other breast and his thumbs circled her nipples in tandem. She closed her eyes and sighed.  _ Let him explore. If he’s never really been with women before, let him explore on his own terms. _

Because she sure as fuck didn’t know what he knew and didn’t know. She could guess—and she already knew what she had planned for the following weekend—but she didn’t  _ know _ . 

His hands left her breasts after some time. She didn’t know how long. Oddly, she found herself sinking almost towards submission as she let his hands roll. She didn’t have to know how long he was exploring her. It wasn’t her place to. She’d given him free rein, as she had done for months with Ahsoka. His palms ran up and down her sides. He cupped her ass, his finger circling her asshole in a way that made her cunt tighten around nothing.

She wanted his fingers in her, his cock.

But this was on his terms.

He didn’t probe her, though. His fingers left her asshole and climbed her spine, tracing the indentation between each rib. When he reached her shoulder blades his hands came to her front again and cupped her breasts. 

“Sir?” 

“Yes?” Breathless. Like someone who’d never been touched before. She looked up into his eyes and saw apprehension there. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“I said you could touch me the way you wanted,” she replied.

His Adam’s apple bobbed again, and then slowly, tantalizingly lightly, he brushed his lips against hers. 

Rey could never have expected what such an innocent kiss could do to her. There was no tongue, no shared breath, but it felt like a static spark had jumped from his lips to hers in that brief moment. It was all she could do not to throw her arms around him, to shove her tongue between his lips and taste him, to hold him closer and closer, to kiss him until she could feel his heart hammering against her ribs.

_ On his terms. _

She watched confusion flood his eyes, then fade again as he dropped his lips to hers once again. This time, there was tongue, and saliva that pooled at the corner of her mouth. This time, his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her in towards him, trapping his erection between their bellies. This time, she twined her arms around his neck because he was pulling her up onto the tips of her toes and she needed balance. She knew he wouldn’t let her fall, but she needed balance. 

She forgot, for a moment, that she was his Domme, that she had given him her submission for a moment. In his kiss she found the briefest moment of serenity. His lips washed away any lingering doubts in her mind that she wasn’t enough for him, that she was too new at this. He wouldn’t be kissing her like this if she were anything short of perfect.

He tumbled her backwards onto the bed, hovering over her. His chest was broad, and warm, and still covered in hickeys. His hands roamed her body eagerly now but he had not once gone between her legs.  _ Is he afraid? Or is he teasing? _

_ Will he fuck me?  _

She hadn’t actually given him permission for that. If he tried, would she be annoyed? 

She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t be  _ angry _ or discipline him. Or at least…

She hadn’t told him he could come. Just that he could touch her.

But she wouldn’t be so cruel as to hang him on that technicality when he’d been so good all weekend.  _ Warn him if he’s close, though. His orgasm should still be on your terms. _

The feeling of his fingers skimming the surface of her slick cunt stopped all thoughts in her head. He was breathing heavily, holding himself above her with one arm, his knees between her legs, and two fingers tracing the outer edges of her labia. She closed her eyes and sighed. Light, and teasing and—if this was anything like that light kiss he’d given her—a precursor to—

He kissed his way down her stomach until he was on his knees, crouched between her legs.  _ Is he going to—? _

But he didn’t lean forward to kiss her where she was hot, and aching, and wet. He eyed her nervously for a moment, as though unsure if he could, then slid a finger into her and watched carefully as he did so, his eyes flicking from her face to her nipples—pebbled and aching for more attention—to her cunt. He began to move his hand, stroking her the way she’d shown him the weekend before, curling his finger and she couldn’t help it.

“Another.”

Yes, it was on his terms, but she could probably ask for more, couldn’t she? 

He complied at once, and she sighed and wriggled, arching her hips towards him. She wanted him to rub her clit, wanted him to bend forward and lick it. She certainly didn’t want his motions to slow, which they were doing. 

She opened an eye and saw him staring at her cunt, a look of concentration on his face. Her gaze trailed down his chest, down his rippling abdomen to his thick, purpling cock. The tip of it was damp. She wanted to lick it, to taste him. She wanted to grab him and pump him until he was falling apart.

“Holy shit.” Her entire body arched upwards as his thumb swiped across her clit. Her blood was flowing hot and cold and her cunt—

It was rolling and pulling at his fingers. She was coming. Not intensely, but coming all the same. Just from the lightest touch to her clit. Her heart was pounding strong in her chest and she opened both her eyes to watch Kylo.

He was staring at her, and in every line of his face—

It frightened her to see him looking at her like that. It would frighten her to see anyone looking at her like that. Like she was the world.  _ Isn’t that what it is, to be a Domme? To claim the right to be someone’s world? _

Except she’d given him her submission. He should look at her like that when he’d given her his, not the other way around.

He pumped his hand into her again, more insistent this time. His thumb continued to gently rub circles onto her clit. Her whole body was trembling, shaking. She’d just come and he couldn’t know unless he was a fucking mindreader that he was doing exactly what he needed to be doing to—

“ _ Fuck _ ,” and it hit her again, this time so intense that she writhed on the bed, that her hand—traitor to her own commands—reached for him, for something to hold onto while the world spun around her and she gasped for air.

How long she lay there, she didn’t know. His fingers were gone, and he didn’t clamber back on top of her. She wouldn't have faulted him if he’d wanted to penetrate her after making her come twice in such quick succession, but he didn’t. He had more control than she did, it seemed. 

When she did open her eyes again, he was still kneeling between her legs. Both of his hands rested on his knees and he was watching her. His dick looked painfully hard.

“Good boy,” she whispered to him again. Was she imagining it, or did his dick swell even bigger at the words? “Would you like to come?” Because something told her he hadn’t missed that she hadn’t given him permission. Had he ever been caught in that before?

“Yes, sir,” he said. 

“Touch yourself. Straddle me and come on my tits.”

He clambered up her body until his legs were on either side of her ribs. He didn’t sit down fully, for which she was grateful. He was big, and probably even heavier than he looked, and he didn’t look light. 

God, his dick was huge as he pumped it. His hand was huge, too. Ahsoka usually needed three or four fingers to really fill Rey up, but Kylo had filled her enough to make her come twice with just two.  _ What will three feel like?  _

She loved the way he touched himself, the way he squeezed a bit at the tip. Precum reappeared and he used it to lube himself.  _ Should I offer him lotion? _

She sat up, propping herself on her elbows, and he paused. She gathered some saliva in her mouth and let it drop onto his tip. His eyes fluttered shut for just a moment. Then he kept pumping. And pumping. She lay back down and watched him. She watched his cheeks grow ruddier and ruddier, watched as his mouth went slack and then, with a cry, he was spattering on her, that tangy, salty, cum flavor filling the air around her as he heaved a groan and went still. 

“Very good,” she told him and there was something hungry in his gaze as he looked down at her. “Now clean me up.”

He bent his head, and began to lick.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience y'all! 
> 
> If I had to guesstimate, this story will be 12 chapters and maybe an epilogue. I say guesstimate because I thought it was gonna be 11 chapters and then I surprise added a new chapter 10 down the line where I'm writing. Now that I've hit my nano goal, I'm hoping to turn my attention back to this fully, and hopefully wrap the full draft up soon, which will mean more consistent updates on this end. Thanks, once again for your patience.
> 
> Per usual: Kylo's mental health is...deeply anxious in this chapter.

He couldn’t sleep that night.

The weekend seeped in behind his eyes. Where he’d had no trouble sleeping on her floor, he couldn’t even sleep in his own bed.

Sometimes, his Master had had him sleep on his floor during the week too. Her only command had been that he not touch himself without her permission.  _ You can text for it,  _ she’d told him with a wink as he’d said his goodbyes. 

He didn’t need to come right now. He felt satiated and spent. Ordinarily, the feeling was enough to knock him out for hours, but tonight, his mind kept spinning.

He remembered the taste of her lips, the taste of his cum on her skin. He remembered the way her tongue felt against his, the way her cunt had gripped his fingers when he’d made her come, the way her breath sounded as it caught in her throat when she was close.

She was beautiful.

And warm.

And firm.

And he never wanted to disappoint her ever. He wanted to please her, to make her happy, to bring her pleasure.

_ Good boys get rewards. _

She kept calling him good.

His Master always called him a disappointment, a waste of space. He’d come home bruised and limping more than once, hesitant to sit down because of how hard he’d been strapped. 

_ I told you before I’d never fault you for your honesty. I meant it. _

She had meant it. He knew that the moment he’d read her email, but he knew it even more now.

He swallowed.

Honesty usually meant pain—before at least.

He tossed again, punching his pillow down in the hopes that this time, it would be the perfect shape to ease his mind to sleep.

But he couldn’t. He didn’t sleep a wink that night and when he made it into the office at seven the next morning, he set the coffee machines like a good office manager and then drank half of the coffee himself.

The way her ass had felt in his hands. The way her asshole had trembled when he’d touched it. The way she’d bitten back moans and gasps.

He wished he hadn’t been a coward and he’d tasted her. He didn’t know when he would get the opportunity again.  _ I suppose she’ll probably ask me to. _

And then be disappointed because he wouldn’t know what he was doing.

But he’d try. He’d try and hopefully that would be enough for her where it never had been for his Master.  _ Do or do not, there is no try. _

He flinched.

And went to the marketing room where he would probably not be disturbed, and did what he promised himself he’d never do at work: pulled up porn on his phone.

It took him all of ten minutes to realize that this would be useless. He’d had enough sex in his life to recognize when someone was doing something for a camera and not because it felt good. And besides, there weren’t cameras that would allow for the angle he needed really. Because the person holding the camera wasn’t the one giving head. 

Well… shit.

He could look up articles, but he didn’t really trust those.  _ Maybe because the ones your Master sent you weren’t good ones. _

_ Don’t think like that about Master. _

He quivered. He put his phone away.

_ Who can you text?  _ He’d played with women before, but he’d never had their contact information. All contact was to happen via his Master—if it was even necessary. 

_ Just be honest with her. Admit you’re a failure and a disappointment. She’s probably expecting it because she had to teach you how to touch her. _

And she let him explore her body. Let him learn the curves of it, the shape of it. Let him watch as he’d made her come— _ twice _ . 

He made it through the the rest of the day somehow. He slept a full night—thank god—and went into work again the following morning, his mind full of how not to suck at giving head the next time he saw her. He spent most of the day remembering the shape of her cunt, the scent of it as he’d fingered her, the little gasps she’d made when he’d touched her here or there. He could do that with his tongue, right? It wasn’t going to be like learning to deepthroat, where he’d spent weeks afraid he’d vomit all over his Master’s cock.

Wednesday meant he’d run out of groceries and so he went to the store after work. She’d given him a meal plan—simple enough to follow, healthy foods, as though he hadn’t been on a similar meal plan for years—and so he wound his way up and down the aisles, grabbing his usuals when he stopped dead. 

She was wearing heels again, and crouching down, looking at different kinds of rice. She had her cell phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder. 

Should he approach her? Should he duck into a different aisle, pretend not to have seen her? He rubbed his finger over the ring on his pinky finger.

The decision was made for him when she stood again and turned and her eyes landed on him. “Got to go,” he saw her lips say, then she put the phone away and moved towards him, a relaxed smile on her face.

The same smile she’d had after he’d made her come twice.

“Hi, you,” she said.

“Good evening,” he replied. Should he call her  _ sir _ in public? They were in a grocery store, it wasn’t as though people would be listening to their conversation. His experience with grocery stores meant that everyone went through them in half-reverie, especially after a day in the office.

“How’s your week been?” she asked him. He swallowed.

“Not bad,” he told her. It wasn’t a lie, but it probably made it sound like it’d been better than it was. Which wasn’t to say it’d been horrible, but he’d been preoccupied. An anxious, nervous knot in his stomach hadn’t let him relax.

Had he always had that with his Master?

“Good, good,” she said with a smile. 

“And yourself?” he asked after a pause.

“Work’s been a mess,” she said. “But it usually is. Luckily I have some good plans for the weekend.” Her eyes twinkled and his mouth went dry.

“It’s always good to have something to look forward to,” he replied, his voice a little raspier than he wanted it to be.

She frowned. “You can relax,” she told him quietly. “We’re out and about. You’re not in my house.”

_ I’m trying _ .

Maybe he didn’t know how to relax. Relaxation and submission didn’t exactly go hand in hand. Indeed, in his experience, relaxation and submission usually led to disciplining and disappointment. But he took a slow breath.

Unbidden, a horrible voice filled his mind.  _ What would she do if she knew you still called me Master? _

His skin erupted in goose prickles, he felt hot and cold and almost like his food was clawing its way back up his throat.

“What should I call you?” he blurted out. His voice sounded alien to his own ears. “You didn’t say in your letter. Should I keep calling you,” he dropped his voice even though the aisle was empty, “sir?”

_ You should have asked this days ago. You should have asked her this when she collared you. What is the point of even wearing her collar if you still think of  _ him _ as your Master and her as  _ her _. _

She frowned, then grimaced. “I knew I was forgetting something,” she muttered. 

“Mistress?” he asked, hoping she’d agree and that would be the end of it. Him and his Mistress, and he’d learn how to think of the other as something other than Master. 

Her eyes flicked between each of his. Hazel, flecked with gold. Expressive. Warm. He clung to the warmth of them. 

“The funny thing about  _ mistress _ is it sort of implies equal, doesn’t it? People who aren’t in relationships like ours have mistresses, don’t they?” There was an amused smile on her lips which didn’t quite soften the way his heart was suddenly hammering in his chest.  _ Equals. I didn’t mean to say that we were equals.  _ He tasted tin on his tongue.

“I’m sorry.” He was trying not to panic. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Oh, you didn’t,” she said at once. Then, with a creasing frown between her brows, “Relax.”

He couldn’t get the taste of tin out of his mouth, couldn’t make his heart slow. 

He tried to breathe. 

“I just meant,” she continued, “That I was having trouble deciding. There aren’t really a lot of words that feel like they fit.”

He couldn’t make his lips move, couldn’t make himself reply. 

“I suppose  _ Mistress _ will do,” she mused, and there was something sharp to her eyes as she watched him. “For now. As a noun. Until we find something better. I still prefer the other mode of address when you speak to me.” 

“Yes, sir,” he managed. She took a step towards him and he felt her hand on his arm. 

“Breathe,” she told him. 

Oxygen flooded his lungs.

Then she was gone.

How long he stood there beside the rice and beans, he did not know. At some point, his heart stopped pounding in his ears. At some point his eyes focused again.

It wasn’t that his Mast—

It wasn’t that the other’s voice was ringing in his ears, it was that he felt the echo of him in his body.  _ You’ll always be mine. Even when I’m gone,  _ the other seemed to say. But there wasn’t really a memory of his voice, and the moment his Mistress—

Mistress.

His Mistress.

The moment his Mistress had commanded him to breathe, his lungs had known far better than his mind whose collar he wore.

He ran his thumb along it again.

It felt like breathing easily, the difference between firm and brutal. She—his Mistress—was firm; the Other was brutal. He wanted to do what she said because he wanted to, not because he was afraid of how much he’d hurt if he didn’t. Or afraid of how much he’d hurt if he did. For years he’d wanted that pain, craved it. When had that changed? Or had he always feared it but told himself he’d craved it? What had made him indicate that pain was a limit in his form?

Was that limit what had meant that all other Doms turned him away after the Other had abandoned him? He had assumed it was that the Other had blacklisted him.

Did it matter? Since the road had led him to his Mistress, who promised no pain but a firm hand all the same?

He ran his thumb over the ring again, then went to the frozen food aisle to get makings for smoothies.

-

“It went well,” she told Ahsoka for the millionth time that hour. 

Her mentor had been out of town for the first few days of the week, at some conference or another—the kind that made her hard to get hold of and took all of her energy right out of her so that when she wasn’t talking about synergy with strangers, she was fast asleep.

But the second she’d gotten home, she’d been on Rey’s ass about the first weekend with Kylo.

“Him freaking out at a grocery store doesn’t sound  _ well _ to me.”

“That wasn’t because of play,” Rey pointed out. “He just was asking what to call me.” Which she’d forgotten to tell him. Like a fool. Because she couldn’t decide. Like an amateur. 

She was supposed to be making it so he had no questions, that he had a strict structure.

“What did you land on?” Ahsoka asked. 

“ _ Mistress _ , for lack of a better option.  _ Sir _ when he talks to me.”

Ahsoka hummed in understanding. It only lasted a moment before she was back on message.

“It sounds like he was on the verge of a meltdown doing grocery shopping.”

“But he also might not have been.”

“Rey—”

“Look, I am a person of my word. If I see an obvious sign that he needs help, I’ll intervene. But it wasn’t obvious. And I did tell him to breathe.”

Ahsoka’s silence spoke louder than any word she could have said.

And that silence followed Rey into the next day, when she was supposed to be crunching numbers but ultimately ended up mostly staring at her computer.

What if Ahsoka was right?

Because sure, she felt very much as though she could do this—as though she was already doing it—but what if she was wrong? And not just in the sense of  _ not being the right Domme for him _ , but also in the sense of  _ what if I make it worse?  _

_ I shouldn’t be making it worse. _

The fact of the matter was that she didn’t know him well enough at all. He was in many ways a mystery to her. She’d only met him a week and a half ago. What Ahsoka termed on the verge of meltdown could be actually light compared to what he’d been dealing with.

Which only made her want to put her head in her hands, because that wasn’t exactly a helpful line of thought. If that were the truth, then she should—absolutely and without question—do what she’d told Ahsoka she’d do.

_ For all I know he already sees a damned therapist,  _ she thought angrily at her computer screen.

She could be a firm influence without harming him further. She truly believed that. She could help him past his pain. He seemed to genuinely enjoy their weekends, judging from the way he’d looked at her when they’d said goodbye.

_ The grocery store was different. _

Of course it was—she didn’t give him parameters for how to approach her in public should they meet in public. 

So she opened an email and began to type.

Finn found her at the end of the day. “You owe me a beer,” he announced as he stood in his doorway.

“One second,” she said.

“It’s after five, who are you sucking up to?”

“I’m not sucking up to anyone,” she said absently. 

“Then what’s got your brow furrowed like that?”

She waved a hand. She did not talk about how she liked to tie men up on weekends if she could. She didn’t talk about the tall, warm-eyed man she’d given a ring to. She’d vowed long before that she would only introduce her love life to her friends if she was getting married. And she wasn’t marrying Kylo. 

She was just telling him that he should not feel obligated to converse with her in public outside of the realm of their play. If he greeted her, it should be with deference, but their play time was restricted to the weekend.

“Boy trouble?” Finn asked and Rey’s eyes shot up.

“Could be girl trouble,” she said, a moment too late to stop the knowing grin cross his face.

“Partner trouble.”

“It’s not a partner.” It wasn’t that kind of a relationship.

“Who you hunting down?” he asked her.

“I’m not,” she said stubbornly.  _ I’ve already caught him. It’s the domesticating that’s tricky. _

“Rey, you could stand to open up a bit.”

“I’m fine,” she said, giving him a look. Finn of all people knew how far she’d come towards trusting people and being honest with her feelings. 

“What’s their deal?”

“Finn—” she warned, but he ignored her, rounding her desk to look at her screen. She locked it immediately, praying he hadn’t actually seen her email. “Stop that.”

“Rey—”

“I’m perfectly capable of dealing with it myself.”

“No one is capable of dealing with love on their own.”

“It’s not love.”

“Potential love.”

“Really not.”

“What’s their deal?”

“They’re a bit fucked in the head and I’m trying to determine if they’re too fucked in the head, ok?” she snapped. “And that’s as much as you get out of me. I’ll figure it out.”

Finn watched her, long and steady. “You’re not an island. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

_ Kylo’s alone.  _

As far as she knew, she was all he had. She doubted—very much, actually—that he had a thriving social life and supportive family.

Oh, this was a mess. This was a recipe for disaster.

“Let me just get my bearings, ok?” she asked Finn.

He sighed. 

Between him and Ahsoka, she’d lose her damn mind—of that she was sure. Both of them worried too much.

_ Shouldn’t you be worried? _

She was. She was terrified. She was terrified of how visibly upset he’d been at the grocery store, afraid that one wrong move and he’d snap.

And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was right, somehow. That she was good for him. That she’d be good for him.

And that maybe he’d be good for her too.

“Your face just went on a journey,” Finn commented. “I’m putting this one squarely in the love category. That face journey isn’t something that happens for anyone who isn’t a potential love.”

“What would you know about it?” she grumbled. She’d shove away the sense that he was right and examine it later. She was good at that. Shoving away her feelings because who cared about them anyway?

“Beer,” Finn said firmly. “Send your message. I won’t peek.”

Indeed, he rounded her desk again to stand in the doorway. She unlocked her laptop and reread the email. It’d have to do.

She looked at Finn.

She was going to need a beer if he was going to make her talk about her feelings. 


	5. Chapter 5

He arrived at her place at 6:28, head bowed and pulse racing, running his pointer finger around the ring on his thumb. It was calming. 

He wasn’t anxious. Or rather—not more anxious than he’d been the past few months. He wouldn’t even call it nervous.

There was anticipation pooling in his belly. Curiosity. Hope?

It was exhilarating and if he’d learned one thing over the years, it was that exhilaration was dangerous. Exhilaration would break his focus and he must be focused.

The door swung open two minutes later to reveal Rey in a satin dressing gown that stretched all the way to her heels. 

“Welcome,” she said, stepping aside to let him in. Her voice was low, husky and that exhilaration swooped in his stomach at the sound of it.

“Thank you, sir,” he replied.

“Did you have any questions about my email?”

“No, sir.” 

“Good.” She led him to the dining room. Food was already on the table which surprised him. 

“Sir?” 

She smiled, inhaling a little bit in amusement. “I’m providing the meals this weekend.” Something in the way she said it made heat pool in his stomach. “You’ll just be eating.”

He blinked at her for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?

She gave him the shit-eating-est grin he’d ever seen in his goddamn life as she settled herself in her seat and began loading her plate with some roast vegetables and chicken. He sat down, still watching her.

“You can ask,” she purred at him.

“When you say I’ll just be eating,” he began as he spooned veggies onto his plate as well. He didn’t ask the rest. He gave her a significant look.

“Clever boy,” she told him. “I think, for the most part, your training has been more than adequate for my needs.” He swallowed, and saw the way that her eyes flickered, and knew that she had seen it. She continued though, which was a relief. “There’s one area where I imagine you might not have a significant amount of training.”

He took a long, slow breath, his cock swelling a bit in his pants. “Indeed.”

“I’ve noticed you shying away from eating me out,” she said calmly and his breath hitched. He was blowing past semi-status fast and was heading straight into a raging hard-on. “So that’s what you’ll be doing all weekend, until I’m properly satisfied with your technique. You won’t come until I’m satisfied,” she added and there was a glint in her eye. “So eat up. You’ll need your strength.”

He did. He ate slowly and chewed slowly and watched her. That satin dressing gown—was she wearing anything under it? Her nipples were definitely stiff and pressing against the fabric, but he couldn’t see any lines of a bra. 

The rest of dinner was a blur. He cleaned the table and washed the dishes, all while keeping his ears pricked. She hadn’t told him to go to her room afterwards. Where would they be doing this?

The answer was made apparent to him when he stepped out into her dining room to put the now-clean plates away. She was lying on her table, her robe open from the waist down, her legs spread. Her cunt was a little bit flushed, a little dewy. He stared at it. This was an invitation to stare at it.

“Put the plates away,” she told him, amusement lacing every syllable.

He did and turned back to her. She watched him, her eyes hooded lazily. 

“I seem to remember a good boy who touched me the way he wanted last weekend,” she said idly—except there was no way she could be truly idle. Not when she was lying like that, waiting for him. “He seemed very attentive.”  _ Of course I was.  _ She’d been intoxicating, but he couldn’t lose himself in her without her giving permission. What else could he be but attentive? “I’d like to see if he remembers what he discovered—but he can only use his tongue.”

He swallowed and knelt next to the table. She’d placed the cushion from her dining room chairs on the ground for him. That was considerate of her. 

She smelled unreal—heady and musky and human and  _ her _ . The scent of her had clung to the skin of his fingers last weekend and he’d let himself sniff it once or twice on Sunday night. But here she was, blooming before him.

He let out a long breath, slow and through widened lips so that it would be warm. He watched the sensitive flesh of her cunt tremble a little. He heard her breath stutter for just a moment.

_ You can do this,  _ he told himself.  _ Come on, Kylo. _

He started with the crease on the left side of her labia, licking gently. He couldn’t use his fingers to ease her from the inside, so it was just teasing. 

Her skin was so soft. It didn’t have any right to be this soft against his tongue. It felt almost like it did when he kissed her lips, except this flesh didn’t kiss back. It trembled, it moistened, it opened before him, but it didn’t pull him in the way her lips had.

And yet, he was drawn in. He couldn’t use his hands, but he decided he’d at least try to widen her legs a little bit with them. If they stayed on her thighs, surely that would work. She didn’t berate him when he did. If anything, she ground towards his face. 

He licked, and licked, and licked. He didn’t know how long he licked. He didn’t count his breaths. It wasn’t his job to know how long it took to bring her off, just to pay attention to the little mewls she made when she made them, to catch her nectar as it dripped towards the table beneath her. 

“Stop teasing, Kylo,” she said from somewhere above him. He looked up. She was propped up on her elbows, watching him. There was a flush to her chest, a feverish brightness to her eyes. “Fuck me with your mouth.”

He tried not to frown. That was what he’d been doing, wasn’t it?

_ Teasing? _

Ok, new plan. He tried to move his tongue faster, he tried sliding it into her—God, she was so soft, and the taste of her completely overwhelmed him, this was everything he’d ever wanted, right around his tongue, savory and rich, and warm…

He tried curling it up in the gesture that had worked with his fingers but no matter what he tried it didn’t seem to be quite enough. He might be trying to fuck her, but if he wasn’t making her come, he couldn’t succeeding, right?

_ Don’t panic. _

_ Breathe. _

It sounded like his Mistress’ voice in his head. While Kylo was eating her cunt. 

He groaned and sucked her clit between his lips, trying to get his tongue close to it and she arched her back and cried out and—

And he could smell her coming, smell from the way that fluid was making its way out of her. It wasn’t squirting, but it was something. Slick? He didn’t really know. He tried to catch it with his tongue. 

She was sitting up, her robe falling open. Her chest was flushed and beautiful and he looked up at her. She bent her head and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then looked down at his cock straining at the front of his pants.

“Good,” she told him. 

“Thank you, sir,” he whispered.

“You’ll get better,” she added and he flushed. “But that was an acceptable starting point.”

Kylo swallowed. He didn’t really like the word  _ acceptable _ . He preferred good. He wanted  _ incredible.  _

She chuckled and pressed a kiss to his forehead again. “Don’t look disappointed, pet,” she told him, stroking his hair. He liked the feel of that, her fingers in his hair. “Soon you’ll forget this was how you first gave head, I promise you. And you  _ did _ get me off—though,” she glanced over his shoulder towards the kitchen, where he knew she could see the stove-top clock, “you were cutting it close.”

He wanted to turn and look.  _ She was timing me? What time is it? _

But it wasn’t his place to know how long it took him to get her off. 

Kylo looked up at her. He liked looking up at her, kneeling before her like this. 

She looked at the clock again, then down at him. “Up,” she said and he stood immediately. His knees creaked, stiff as all fuck, but he tried not to let the discomfort cross into his face. “Go shower,” she told him. “Take as long as you want, but you aren’t to touch your shaft. You can massage your balls as much as you like though.” There was a twinkle in her eyes. “When you’re done, come to my bedroom.”

He departed without another word and showered. He couldn’t get the taste of her out of his mouth but that was ok. He didn’t have to. It sounded like he’d drink her down this weekend—so much so that he’d forget what his mouth tasted like without her in it. He was fine with that.

His cock strained towards his hand as he showered, but he avoided touching it as much as he could. His balls ached, but even if his Mistress had given him permission, it felt dangerous to touch them. The last thing he wanted to do was overstimulate himself, not least because he didn’t know how much additional stimulation she had planned for him tonight. Sleep would likely not come easily but it wouldn’t be the first time he went to bed hard and wanting. He doubted his Mistress would make him go the whole weekend without letting him come. She certainly seemed to be incentivizing his learning well and learning fast. It was his—the Other—who hadn’t let him come for an entire month once. That didn’t seem to be his Mistress’ style. At least not without talking to him first.

He liked that she did. He liked that she checked in, and clarified. Had the Other ever done that? Kylo couldn’t remember. Surely he must have in the early days, right? But he couldn’t remember. It was like staring at a wall, or staring through a fogged window into someone else’s life. He’d been so young then. Different.

He finished showering and padded quietly into her bedroom. She was standing there, the dressing gown gone. “On the bed,” she told him and he climbed onto it. “On your back, arms out.”

She tied his arms to the bedpost, then bent his knees and straddled his lower abdomen, leaning back against his thighs. His cock pressed against her ass. 

“Can you breathe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I’m going to show you what I like,” she told him firmly. “And I want you to pay close attention.” She slid her fingers between her legs and rolled her clit between them.

Oh, he was gone. He was so gone.

-

She had been worried lying on the table that he wouldn’t make her come at all.

It wasn’t that he was  _ bad _ at giving head, it was more that he seemed lost. Maybe she hadn’t defined the scope enough. Maybe he thought he was doing a better job than he was. It wasn’t bad, just slow. She didn’t need more than a few minutes of what took him a full thirty. And she couldn’t not admire his dedication but also, after a certain point, teasing like that wasn’t what she’d want from him. At least not this weekend.

She could definitely imagine some sort of situation where she did.  _ Don’t make me come while I read the newspaper, just make me feel good,  _ or something like that. She’d think on that later.

But he had in the end. A little more through force than finesse, but he had, which meant they were that much closer. She’d told herself that she must be firm: the nature of his reward by the end of the weekend would depend on how many times she came, and how quickly, and how quickly he learned.

He looked like he was going to fall apart watching her masturbate on him. His face was a daze as he watched her bring herself off once, twice, three times before climbing off him and telling him to go to sleep on the pallet by her bed. She could hear him tossing and turning. In the darkness, she sometimes saw, depending on how he was lying, the way that the blankets tented over his massive erection.

She licked her lips.

Literally only a weekend of nonstop oral would keep her from fixating on his dick. It was nice, and huge, and she really wanted to feel what it felt like when she did finally fuck him.  _ Soon,  _ she told herself, settling down under her blankets.  _ Soon. _

She woke before he did and made them both breakfast. They ate quietly, neither of them bothering to dress. He looked exhausted, and she wondered how much he’d slept the night before. She hoped it wouldn’t affect his performance this morning. She had scheduled some downtime in the afternoon where he could nap if he wanted. If he needed.

They returned to her bedroom and Rey climbed onto the bed, spreading her legs as she settled back against her pillows. 

“No hands,” she told him again. “You’re going to go until I came as many times as I did last night.” It was a challenge, and she could see on his face that it made him nervous. “I believe in you, Kylo,” she murmured. “You’re such an attentive boy.”

He was. He had been. 

When his lips first connected with her cunt, there was more pressure than there had been the night before. Where last night he had been exploratory, tentative, this morning he was firmer, more focused. Up and down her labia he licked, but he didn’t lose himself in them. If he teased, it wasn’t accidental, and pride flooded her. He had noticed the way she’d toyed with herself. His eyes had all but bugged out of his head with how much pressure she put on her own clit, watching as she circled it with three fingers at once until she was jerking and writhing on his stomach. He’d seen the way she’d taken pauses along her labia, how she’d paused to finger herself, stroke inside for a moment so as not to lose her head too early, so she could build it up, build it up build it—

The orgasm rolled over her—not too strong but not gentle either. A good starting orgasm. A good warm-up. Ahsoka had always aimed for this exact level of orgasm if she was going to spend the day making Rey come. She didn’t want to knock her out too soon.  _ Your cunt’s a fucking dream,  _ Ahsoka had told her once.  _ I can make it do whatever I want, and if I’m careful I can make it go at whatever pressure I want. Do you know how hard I usually have to train my subs to get them to do that? So that they can take it? _

She wondered how Kylo would react if she told him she wanted him to break her record of six orgasms in a morning. He’d seemed overwhelmed by four.

He didn’t really seem overwhelmed anymore. If anything, his tongue was more insistent. As with the day before, he used his hands to hold her in place. She didn’t mind that though. One hand was keeping her thighs open, the other was pressing into her lower abdomen to keep her from jerking her hips too hard the way she wanted to. That one, maybe, she should push away, but it was the right amount of pressure and—

“Oh!” she let out a yell of surprise. He had dipped his tongue all the way down to her ass and circled it twice before bringing it back to her clit. “Brat,” she told him, running her hands through his hair. He looked up at her, pausing. “I suppose I did say you’d just be eating me, and not my cunt specifically.” He laughed. His breath was warm and wonderful against her skin. “Do you like eating ass?”

His lips quirked in a crooked smile. “I liked eating your ass just now,” he replied. An interesting clarification. 

“Well, if you finish your task before noon, I’ll let you eat my ass until you’re done with it,” she said. His eyebrows twitched and he lowered his mouth to her cunt again and there was a new gusto to his movements.

The second orgasm came not too long after the first, though it wasn’t a particularly satisfying one. The trouble with coming easily is that sometimes, the orgasms don’t get enough buildup. It wasn’t something she felt she could complain about a lot, but when she was having her pussy—and, apparently, ass—eaten all weekend, she felt like she could. He was replacing finesse with speed, just as he’d replaced finesse with force the night before.

When it looked like her third orgasm would be the same she told him to slow down. “Enjoy it,” she said. “Now that you know what you’re doing.”

And he did and—

She hadn’t spent much time thinking about the difference between fucking and making love. Certainly not in the sexual relationships she was trying to get into. But it felt like he was making love to her cunt as he sucked on it. He peppered the inside of her thighs with kisses when he paused to take breaths, his tongue curled and massaged and twined around her clit. His lips kissed her labia as though they were her lips. He’d done that the other night too. She liked it. 

He moved his hand from her lower abdomen and used it to widen her legs a little more. She used the opportunity to arch her back a little, to press herself up towards him. When next his tongue connected with her clit, it was just the tip, lapping at her slowly, gently and she melted, warmth coursing through her. That was it—figuring out how to get her through the lightest touch. That was what she wanted. That was how she wanted him. 

It felt like her skin was buzzing now. Her nipples, her lips. Her heart was fluttering in her chest, the bed was soaked from her own juices and his saliva under her ass. She felt like a goddess, she felt light. “One more,” she whispered to him. “You’re doing so well.” And, because she wanted something to grip the next time, she told him, “Finger me.”

Two fingers slid into her and she sighed as they curled up and stroked her gently in time with his tongue. She could lose herself in this. She would lose herself in this. She loved this feeling—like her whole body was vibrating, so close to spent but not quite there yet. She could do one more. One more and then she could rest and let him do what he wanted to her ass. Without a plug, that would be more for him than for her—assuming he did really want it. She thought he must, though, from the gusto.

The gusto.

He didn’t seem to be tiring at all. He’d looked exhausted over dinner but he didn’t seem to be flagging. 

She wondered how hard his cock was. She couldn’t tell with him face down on the mattress the way he was. His legs were kicked back behind him. What would he do if she told him to touch himself, but not to come?

She did.

His eyes were so blown that she couldn’t even see his pupils as he reached down beneath him, propping himself on his elbow. She did catch a glimpse of how red and swollen his dick was and that was enough for her for the time being. 

That was enough and she ached for him. His fingers didn’t feel like enough, his tongue didn’t feel like enough. She wanted to ride him and kiss him and taste herself on his tongue. It was all she could do not to change the plan at once—but there was a plan. He needed this plan. She never wanted to see hesitation in his face when he looked at her cunt and tried to decide if he was going to eat her out. She wanted this to be burned into his mind—a thing he could do and a thing he  _ should _ do at every opportunity.

Because he was doing it so well, the way his tongue swirled, the way his lips sucked, the way his fingers coaxed. When she did feel her orgasm building, she knew it would be a fire that would rage through her for a minute at least. Maybe longer.

Maybe he’d make her come so hard she’d never really stop.

Her mind went white, went blank and her lungs and heart and muscles took over as she arched and cried out and came like she hadn’t come since the time that Ahsoka had put a dildo up her ass, inside her cunt, and then ran a vibrator against her clit through three orgasms. She hadn’t felt human after that. She didn’t feel human now.

Except she did. 

She felt wonderfully and deliciously human as Kylo kissed her through and traced patterns into her stomach. Her eyes had to be open because she saw his gaze flit between her face and her still-clenching cunt. His fingers were still in there. He could feel and see what he’d done to her. 

“Good boy,” she told him. He relaxed into a smile. She made a point of checking her watch. It was just past noon, but he didn’t need to know that. For all she knew, she’d been coming for ten minutes. 

She rolled onto her stomach, the bed soaking beneath her. “Go on,” she whispered. 

And he did.

-

“Was that ok?” she asked him. She’d given him a few minutes after he’d opened his eyes, which he appreciated. He had barely slept last night, and felt like he’d had a hard-on nonstop since dinner. 

“Yeah,” he said. “That was more than ok.” He took a deep breath.

She had declared the scene over when he’d pulled away from her ass, which per her own rules meant he could speak freely. But it felt wrong to. 

_ That’s the Other, not her. _

“Was I ok?”

She snorted. His eyes widened in horror and hers did too. “No—not like that,” she said at once. “You were wonderful. You’ve learned very quickly. I’m pleased.”

Kylo nodded and swallowed and tried to relax again. 

“Did that push you too hard?” she asked him. “I know it’s a long while to be doing something.”

This time it was  _ him _ resisting snorting. That—that was nothing compared to the six hours his—the Other—had had him suck off a group of other Doms who had come to his house for some gathering or other. Non-stop, dicks in his face, and he hadn’t even been able to rest before he was being put into a new scene. At the time, he’d been titillated, proud, excited. It wasn't a weekend where the Other found an excuse to discipline him, so he’d been relieved too. But this was nothing on that. “No,” he said. “No, you didn’t push me too hard.”

“Good, because I have more plans for you,” she said. He liked her grin, how toothy it was, how her lips framed them. He liked the way her eyes danced as she stretched, her tits pulling up higher on her chest then dropping as she let her arms fall to her side again. 

The plan in question surprised him. She was going to watch a movie, and he was supposed to lick her the whole time, but not make her come. They had dinner, and then went into her living room and she threw her legs over the arm-rests of one of her armchairs and Kylo sat on the floor between her legs and just licked. It felt oddly wrong after that morning, after the night before. It felt against everything he was used to in ten years. It certainly wasn’t the sort of thing that the Other would ever have asked of him. 

It was lazy, and meditative. He listened to the movie a little bit, but didn’t really focus on it. He just stroked her up and down, making her as wet as he could, expecting that, when the movie was over, she’d ask him to make her come.

But she didn’t.

When the movie ended, she pulled away from him, thanked him, and told him to get some rest.

It was the most confusing task that had ever been set him. 

_ Restraint?  _ He wondered. Was she trying to teach him restraint?

Why?

He already knew restraint. If he didn’t, his jizz would have coated her living room floor so fast because of how quickly he would have palmed himself into oblivion. This whole weekend was an exercise in restraint, the mental images that floated through his head, things he knew one day they’d do together. He was sure she’d ride him. He was sure she’d tell him to fuck her in however many ways she wanted him. She seemed to enjoy letting him take control—or at least saw it as a way to reward him—so he might be able to fuck her the way he wanted. Every position, every feeling. He’d make her come, watch her smile, make her taste the way she tasted on his lips…

“What’s that face?” she asked him and he froze. 

They were in her room, and he was lying on his side, watching her as he let his mind wander. He hadn’t really noticed that she was watching him too in the dark.

“What face, sir?”

“You look happy,” she said.

_ Happy.  _

When had Kylo ever looked happy, ever been happy? Was that what that lightness in his chest was, that sense of optimism he hadn’t felt since he was a child?

“I am,” he muttered. “I think I am.”

“Good,” she said. “I want you to be happy. You make me happy.”

“You make me happy, too, sir,” he replied. “I didn’t think I could feel happy.”

“Oh?”

He should not have said that. Was he losing his mind? He shouldn’t have said anything close to that.

“Not really,” he said. 

“Why not?”

He swallowed.  _ You could say it. He’d never find out. He’d never know. She’d never tell him. _

“My—my former Master didn’t really care if I was happy. So I wasn’t.”

The silence could have gone on for a year or maybe a second. It didn’t matter. His entire body was trembling.  _ What are you doing? What are you doing? Why are you saying this? He’ll find out and hurt you and— _

“Sounds like he wasn’t a very good Dom to me.”

He stared at her. She stared back. Had she really said that? Or had he imagined it.

“He was a very good—”

“If he made you fear pain and not want to be happy, that sounds like a terrible Dom.” Her voice was firm, her face hard. She wouldn’t suffer any contradictions here. 

Kylo licked his lips. They felt so dry.

He couldn’t say anything at all. His whole mind was rioting. Part of it, the part that had spent the day buried between her legs, was screaming that she was right. Two weekends with her and he already felt more elation than Kylo had ever felt in his Master’s dungeon. 

The other half was nothing short of terror. 

It was too much.

He turned so that he was lying on his back, not his side. His hard-on had faded somewhere in the past few minutes, and so there wasn’t the embarrassing tent that he’d been trying to avoid.

“You deserve happiness, Kylo,” he heard her whisper. “No one ever deserves pain.”

He ran his finger over her collar. His Master had liked to tighten his sometimes. Because he wanted to, because he could. 

Her collar never felt like a weight to drag him down, to drown him.

It felt like a buoy. It felt like something anchoring him to her.

-

She left him breakfast by his pallet before going out on a walk that morning, calling Ahsoka.

“He said he felt happy,” she told her. “That he hadn’t thought he could feel happy.”

“That’s good,” Ahsoka said neutrally.

“Can you maybe for once be happy or supportive?” Rey snapped.

“I will never not think he needs therapy,” Ahsoka repeated.

“If he keeps opening up to me, I’ll try and get him to,” she said and she could practically hear Ahsoka raise her eyebrows. “You of all people know that if someone isn’t ready to go to therapy, there’s no amount of persuasion that’ll convince them to do it. But if he opens up, I might be able to get him to without there being a…”

“Meltdown?”

Rey sighed, looking around. It was nice out. Autumnal. The leaves were turning and everything was lovely. There were children playing in a playground across the street. And back in her house, there was a man who had spent the better part of yesterday with his tongue on her cunt. 

“You doing ok?” Ahsoka asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Rey replied. “I feel more in tune this week.”

“Good. You being steady will help him.”

“I know,” she said. She knew perfectly well. How many times had Ahsoka said it? Just because Ahsoka disapproved didn’t mean she needed to micromanage. Rey wasn’t her sub anymore.

“Also—I found someone who might know his former Dom. I’m gonna do some digging,” Ahsoka told her. Rey froze. She might have been curious before, but the more time she spent with Kylo the less she wanted to know about his previous Dom. That man was in the past now—and learning more about him might make it harder for her to focus on Kylo’s present.

“Ahsoka—” she warned, but Ahsoka cut her off.

“Listen if this guy is as abusive as he sounds, he has no place in the scene.”

“Kylo’s already nervous about saying anything about him. If he learns someone’s digging on his behalf—”

“I’ll be careful. Don’t you trust me to be subtle?”

“You have all the subtlety of a sledge hammer,” Rey grunted.

Ahsoka paused. “I suppose I deserve that,” she conceded. “But I will be careful. I’ll keep Kylo’s name out of it. I’ll pretend I’m looking for a reference on him or something, not that he said anything.”

“Ahsoka,” Rey began, but Ahsoka cut her off again. 

“Gotta run. The plumber’s here.”

_ The plumber so isn’t there,  _ Rey thought as the line went dead. 

She had a bad feeling about this. She understood that Ahsoka did it out of care, but it made Rey feel like a child, a kitten, someone who couldn’t take care of her own sub on her own. Kylo  _ was _ her sub, and Ahsoka didn’t know him from the next man in a collar. She made assumptions about him but didn’t know what it looked like when he came, when he smiled, when he slept. She could appreciate Ahsoka’s caring about her, but if it meant that her former Domme  _ thought _ she was caring for Kylo but wasn’t? 

The last thing that Rey wanted was for Kylo to be in any way exposed to his previous Dom, in memory or otherwise.

She made her way back to the house and found Kylo sitting on the floor, still naked, his plate of breakfast clean on the ground beside him. Guilt flooded her. She should have left it on the table for him at least.

“Good morning,” she said. His gaze flickered. Did he sense her agitation? He probably did. He was used to the whims of a more mercurial Master.

“Good morning,” he replied. 

She took a long, slow breath.

“On the bed,” she commanded, then turned and left the room. She took a quick shower, taking long, slow breaths the entire time. Why was she so riled? Because Ahsoka kept pushing back? Because she didn’t heed Rey’s caution while also telling her to be cautious?

She stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel, but her hand froze halfway towards the terrycloth. She left the bathroom still dripping, walking quietly down the hallway to her bedroom. He was lying there, watching the door, his cock half-hard, his hands at his side. He did not move when she entered.

Her hair was still dripping rivers down her body. The bed was going to be soaked from her. This was a dumb idea, but it was too late to change course. “Front or back?” she asked.

He blinked at her. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand.”

“Front or back? If you don’t decide, I will.”

“Back, I suppose,” he said and she climbed onto the bed, moving towards him on her knees. 

“I’m glad,” she said as she swung her leg carefully over his face. “I like this view better,” and she lowered herself onto him.

“Good boy,” she hummed when he began to lick her without prompting. He should have waited for her but she didn’t care. Right now, she just wanted to come hard, and then have him fuck her. She was tired of thinking and tired of worrying. She just wanted to feel.

She grabbed the bedpost with one hand as his tongue swiped up and down her labia before he began to suck on her clit in earnest. 

She watched his erection swell. She watched it bob as he shifted his hips, watched it begin to leak precum as he teased. If his torso weren’t so damn long, she’d bend over and suck it but she wasn’t sure she could reach quite like this. 

Another time.

She ran her fingers over his nipples and he hummed into her cunt. She liked that feeling, the way his lips vibrated and her entire body echoed a vibration in response.

How long she rode him, she didn’t really know. He made her come twice—both good orgasms, neither forceful nor underwhelming. And it was as she was letting him lick her out of the second that she rested her hand on his chest and eased herself off his mouth.

She’d planned to ride him, but her mind was blissfully empty, so she heard herself say, “How do you want to fuck me, Kylo?”

“Repeatedly,” he responded without missing a beat.

“Brat.”

She heard his breath move as he laughed silently.

“How do you want to fuck me?”

He didn’t respond right away and she sighed. “Don’t make me ask a third time. If I do, it’s the last time you ever choose.”

He didn’t respond with words, just with movements. He was kneeling between her legs, pulling them up over his shoulders so that her hips weren’t quite on the bed anymore. “Like this, sir,” he murmured.

“Go on then,” she said. “Come when you want.”

And she groaned because him pressing into her at just that angle, with her entire lower body resting against him...it was divine. She didn’t stretch around him. He’d warmed her up plenty that morning, but she had a feeling she’d have a good amount of fun riding him when she was a little less ready, just to feel the stretch of him.

He was vigorous, pumping his hips forward into her. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed, and she had a feeling she saw Kylo stripped of everything, Kylo at his core, the face he made when he was at peace.

It was beautiful.

His plush lips, the ones that had been wrapped around her clit all weekend, were parted slightly, smiling lightly. His long lashes fluttered against the top of his flushed cheeks. 

And suddenly his eyes were open and they were piercing into her and she almost forgot how to breathe as he leaned forward, angling them differently now, her butt back on the bed, her ankles still on his shoulders but this time her lips were pressed to his and he was kissing her, his tongue dancing with hers until she forgot what her mouth had tasted like before she tasted herself on his breath. 

So good.

Everything about him, everything about this—this was so good. 

“Yes, Kylo,” she moaned, running her hands up and down his back. “God, yes.”

His fingers fumbled at her clit and loosely she was aware he was trying to bring her off one last time before he fell apart. His movements were erratic, frantic, out of control, desperate and somehow that made up for the lack of precision as she cried out and arched around him and he spent himself with a groan.

They both lay there for a long while, entwined in one another. He was warm, and he had his arms wrapped around her as though she was something precious to him.

That wasn’t a thought to let grow legs.

“Have you been wearing a plug?” she asked him at last.

He didn’t respond immediately. “Not recently,” he told her.

“Wear one this week.”

“Yes, sir.”

She wanted to nuzzle her face into his neck when he said that. It’s ridiculous. Born of a long weekend of coming, she’s sure.

It would pass.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, please check out endnotes for trigger warnings.

Kylo—if he did say so himself—nailed it. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he had this kind of a spring in his step when he got to work on Monday. It was so obvious that even the security guard, a man taller even than him named Jar Jar, asked, “Good weekend?”

“Yes,” he said with a grin. “A really good weekend.”

Grinning? Him? Spring in his step? Actually talking to Jar Jar instead of grunting and heading straight to the coffee machines to fill them up? 

Her cunt was delicious. The view of her body as she came over and over again because of  _ him _ was incredible. The way she’d felt when—finally—he’d pressed into her, the way she’d let him—no—begged him to fuck her. 

Yeah, he’d nailed it.

Not even with the Other had he ever felt like he’d nailed a weekend.

_ Your Master was more stringent than your Mistress. She is easier to impress. _

He hated—hated—just how much that punctured his good mood.

_ She said he wasn’t a good Dom. _

_ And what would she know?  _ The Other whispered in his mind.  _ She’s new at this. New at this and lets you take the reins. What sort of Dom does that? Maybe she isn’t even really a Domme at all? _

He drank some coffee, went to the marketing room to unbox the new batch of sweatshirts that had come in, and did his best to revisit the weekend. That would help. He’d made her come just about a million times—had made her come the first time he’d ever given a woman oral. She’d asked him to wear a plug which meant he could expect anal this weekend and he loved anal. Anal orgasms were always unbelievably intense. 

That was why the Other had always been so stingy with them. 

_ She won’t be. _

He wished that it didn’t feel like a condemnation of her. She made him feel better than he’d felt in months—what did it  _ matter _ if the Other thought her technique wasn’t good? She thought  _ his _ technique wasn’t good. And Kylo wore her collar now. 

_ You don’t matter _ , he hissed at the other.  _ I have a new Mistress. She’s better than you were. _

_ She’ll never be better than I was. She’ll never know your body, know your mind, the way I do, _ the Other replied. 

Kylo yelled and threw a box of sweatshirts to the ground. It was deeply unsatisfying—no crash, no breaking. Just a thunk and a few sweatshirts that fell out of the cardboard box as it decided slowly to land sideways after teetering for a moment. “Get out of my head,” he growled.

_ Never,  _ the Other replied.  _ You’re mine.  _

_ Forever. _

Kylo ran his fingers around the ring.  _ I’m not.  _

But the protest felts weak and no matter what, he couldn’t get that buoyant feeling back.

-

Friday arrived after the slowest week of Rey’s life. She was both tense and more relaxed than she’d been in ages. She was more nervous than she wanted to be.

She’d pegged before. She’d been pegged before. Ahsoka had made sure that she was well aware of how best to lube, to stretch, to make sure that someone was properly prepared before sliding a strap-on into them. 

But she’d never pegged anyone with a prostate before. She’d never even touched one before. She spent a lot of time researching how to find it, techniques to make the best prostate orgasm, blog posts about what it felt like to be fucked in the ass and jerked off at the same time. She did not doubt that Kylo would use his plug and make sure he was properly prepared for anal. He was nothing if not thorough—always well-prepared.

He’d seemed less nervous the weekend before. His nerves had vanished after he’d realized he could make her come orally. He’d been  _ bratty _ . The memory of it still made her smile. 

She wanted him to be bratty, and playful, and happy. She wanted this to be good for him, for him to feel he could thrive with her. She wanted to be sure of who he was so that—if she ever did try and push his limits—he’d know he was safe with her. Because he was safe with her.

She didn’t hear from Ahsoka all week, which she tried not to be anxious about. No updates about whether she’d actually spoken to the contact who knew Kylo’s old Dom yet, no check-ins about how she was feeling or what she was planning. Radio silence.

Rey couldn’t decide if she was pissed or not.

“Beer?” Finn asked her on Friday afternoon as she was finishing up her final reports.

“Sorry, can’t,” she told him.

“Boy toy?”

“He’s not my boy toy,” Rey grunted, hating just how on the nose Finn’s teasing was.

“Well you say he’s not boyfriend material but that you’re having sex. That sounds like a boy toy to me.”

“Fine,” Rey responded. “Boy toy.”

“Well, have fun,” Finn grinned at her. “Make sure he wears a condom.”

_ I’m going to be fucking his ass. No condom needed, Finn. _

She wondered how Finn would react if she told him that. Would he take it in stride, or want to sink right through the floor because he’d gotten more than he’d bargained for when asking about her sex life?

Kylo was there at precisely 6:30 and cooked her a nice meal. There was something odd about his face tonight. Anticipation? Excitement? His gaze was jumpier than usual, and when he looked at her there was a tinge of need she hadn’t seen before.

“Did you use your plug?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you feel prepared?”

He nodded.

“Go to the bedroom, light candles, and wait for me naked.”

He got to his feet at once, leaving her to clean up dinner. She should have made him do it—he was here to serve her—but something felt strange about tonight. Something she couldn’t place.

_ Am I nervous? _

Yes, but not nearly as nervous as she had been when she’d tied him up the first time he’d come over. She felt decently confident, in fact, that even if it wasn’t the best time he’d been fucked in the ass, that it would be fine, and he would tell her what could have been better when she asked later.

She glanced at her phone.

Still no message from Ahsoka.

_ Why are you thinking about Ahsoka now? Your submissive is here for the weekend. _

She went into the bathroom, stripped out of her own clothes, and found her harness and the toy she wanted to use. It wasn’t her largest one. She didn’t know how big his plug was and whether he’d be prepared for it. She’d make sure he was, one day. 

She strode into her bedroom. He was standing, his hands at his side, his eyes downcast. She’d never get over the sight of him like that—huge and muscular but with just a word he’d do whatever she wanted.

“Kneel.”

He did without looking up, his abdomen rippling at the motion. She stepped towards him so that the phallus was just by his face.

“Kiss it,” she said huskily. “Kiss the cock that’s going to fuck you.”

Everything shifted. 

In the dim light of the candles, she saw as the color left his face, saw him blink furiously. He looked like he was dizzy, trying not to sway. 

_ No _ .

“Kylo—” she said sharply and he jerked his face forward towards the cock but missed. He lost his balance and grabbed her leg. “Red. End Scene.”

And he was on his feet, stumbling out of the room, his footsteps heavy. Rey unbuckled the harness, let it fall to the floor as she hurried after him.

She heard the sound of retching in her bathroom and froze.

_ No. No. No no no. _

“Kylo,” she called gently. He didn’t respond. 

What did she do? What should she do? Should she get him water from the kitchen? 

Yes. Yes, a glass of ice water. 

Her hands trembled as she filled it. She could still hear him retching. It was like he was screaming through the house. She wanted to cry.  _ What did I do? _

_ He’s a walking red flag,  _ Ahsoka had warned her. She probably hadn’t done anything beyond say the wrong words. He probably hadn’t even known how to warn her.

She knocked on the door before opening it. He was crouched next to her toilet, his face blotchy. There were tears on his face and he looked like he couldn’t bear to look at her. “Water,” she said gently, handing the glass to him. He took it with a shaking hand. She flushed the toilet without looking into it, then grabbed one of her towels and covered his lower body. Him being naked right now—it felt off. She grabbed her own bathrobe and put it on, kneeling down onto the tiled floor as he took little sips of the water. 

“Sorry,” he muttered at last. He still wasn’t looking at her.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she said bracingly. He didn’t respond, he just took another sip of water. His hands were still shaking. 

He looked miserable. He looked small.

“Kylo,” she said slowly and the way his face went hard, like he was building every possible wall between what he was expecting her to say and his heart—it made her feel like she was about to kick him. “Kylo, have you gone to a therapist before?”

Whatever he’d been expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. He stared at her. He gaped at her.

She pressed on. “Because this sort of a reaction, and some of what you allude to—I think it would benefit you. Your previous Master—” he reacted so fast, the way color drained from his face, the way his whole body seemed to shake, “that’s exactly what I mean,” she insisted. “That—right there. That’s not a natural reaction to have. If he hurt you,” her heart twisted, “if he did things to you—you should talk to someone about—”

“I don’t want to go to a therapist.” His voice was low, raspy, raw from the acid in his stomach. “They don’t help.”

“They do,” Rey said firmly. Leia had helped her so much. “I wouldn’t be remotely functional without having gone to mine.”

“They don’t, ok?” he said more forcefully. “They just play head games with you and make you think you’re getting better but you’re not.”

“As opposed to what?” she demanded. “Vomiting mid-scene because you don’t even know what’s going to hurt you so I can’t steer clear of it? I can’t attend to your needs if neither of us know what they are—and it’s clear that your hurt runs deep.”

“If I go to a therapist, they’ll tell me I shouldn’t do this. I should stop. And I  _ just _ got back to it, and I’ve been feeling better than I have since my Master ghosted me.” Then, horribly, he reached up and hit himself on the side of the head.

“Kylo, no.” Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.

“He’s not my Master anymore. I shouldn’t call him—I—”

His eyes were wide and rolling. He did not look in control of himself at all.  _ Full meltdown.  _ Rey worried that even breathing would shatter everything.  _ Why did he even try to find another one if his previous one hurt him this badly? _

“If this is how you react to a simple scene, maybe you should stop,” she said and he froze. 

He did not guard the agony on his face and it made her want to cry to see it there.

“You don’t want me?” he asked dully. “I’m too broken.”

“I do want you,” she responded fiercely. “But I won’t be responsible for making you hurt more. And that’s what will keep happening if I don’t help you heal. And I’m not trained to help you heal, Kylo. I work in finance. I don’t know how brains work. I barely can handle my own.”

“What if we change what we do?” he asked desperately.  _ Bargaining _ . She recognized it. She’d been there before. “What if it’s more worshippy things. Like last weekend. Last weekend was—”

“What if I ask you to kiss my feet? If kissing my strap-on was triggering, how do I know if that won’t be?” He swallowed and she continued. “The whole point of those checklists is so that I can know what lines not to cross, but how can I know for sure if you don’t know yourself? Clearly you know some of it—like when you said you didn’t want pain, but this wasn’t remotely on your checklist. What’s lingering there in the shadows of what’s hard to think about? I can’t be a good Domme to you if I don’t respect what you can’t tolerate, but if you don’t even  _ know _ what you can’t tolerate, what am I supposed to do?”

He was quivering, inhaling and exhaling sharply. He looked small, for all he was huge. His eyes were round and so sad. 

“The only way I can do this is if I meet your needs,” Rey said. “That’s the whole point of this arrangement—we meet one another’s needs. And your current needs are healing. If I can’t give that to you, then I need to help you find the avenue that will. That’s what this means.”  _ How can we meet one another’s needs if we both break. Because this—this will make me break. _

She hated that thought. That watching him break could break her. Even if she was only the straw that broke the camel’s back, not nearly as damaging as his previous Master, she’d still know it was because of something she’d done. Her lack of experience, her desperation to be wanted—needed—by someone blinding her to the reality that Ahsoka had warned her of from the beginning: that she wasn’t equal to this.

_ I won’t be able to live with myself if I make it worse. _

She reached for his hand and traced the ring he wore on his pinky. 

“They’ll tell me to stop,” he said quietly. “I know they will. They’ll stop me and then what will I have? Nothing. I’ll have nothing.”

“You won’t,” Rey said firmly. “Even if you do have to stop for a time, that doesn’t mean it’s for forever, and—”

She froze. She would not accept any of his bargaining if it was trying to get him out of therapy. He needed to go. She was too afraid of what she could do to him if he didn’t let himself heal. And she worried he wasn’t letting himself. That he was too fixated on not feeling however he had been feeling that he threw himself forward wildly, flailing, in pain. He didn’t know how to pause and breathe and take care of himself when he was still running. 

But she didn’t want to stop seeing him.

“We’ll figure out what to do if that’s what they say.” 

He looked at her sharply. “But—”

“I mean,” she cut in, hastily. “I mean we’ll talk about what their advice is, and see what it means for us, and how we engage with one another and see one another. Because I will want to still see you. I do want to.” At her words, he seemed to sag, relief and exhaustion hitting him at once. She could tell he was close to conceding so instead of responding, and suddenly, she wanted to hold him. “Can I touch you? Or would you prefer—” but he was already nodding and she scooted towards him on the floor and pulled him into her arms, stroking his hair. His eyes pressed into her neck and his breathing accelerated. Then she felt more tears. 

“It will be alright,” she told him. “It will be.”

“How do you know?” he mumbled.

“Because you’ve come this far,” she told him. “Because I believe in you.” He pulled away from her and his face looked like it had aged a thousand years. His eyes were bloodshot and sad. She reached a hand up and cupped his cheek, stroking along a line left by tears. “You’re not alone.”

He blinked very fast. “I don’t want to do this,” he muttered. “I don’t.”

“But you will,” she said.

He nodded. 

“Do you want to stay the night, or do you want to go home and have some space?

“I want to stay.” He said it so fast, so desperately.  _ How afraid is he that I’ll push him away?  _

She pulled him to his feet, and led him into her bedroom. “Do you want sweatpants?” she asked him. Hers would not fit him, but they’d cover him at least.

He shrugged. “I don’t care.”

She settled him down on the bed and gave him the good pillow. He was not going to sleep on the floor tonight.

She blew out the candles, then climbed under the blankets next to him. He turned towards her on his side, then scooted almost tentatively closer to her. Then he was in her arms again, his face buried in her neck, and she held him close.

“You’ll be alright,” she repeated into the darkness.

He didn’t reply. 

She fell asleep not long after. When she woke, he was already awake.

She wondered if he’d slept at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo gets triggered in a scene with Rey. The trigger for him is being asked to kiss a strap-on, and it leads to him melting down, the scene ending abruptly, and him needing to vomit. He also self-harms (hits himself in the head) during his meltdown. That segment begins right at the start of their weekend.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kind reviews. I was anxious about posting the last chapter for a number of reasons and you all were wonderful and made me feel so much better. 
> 
> <3 
> 
> On to the next phase!

“How was it?”

It took her all of three days to find someone for Kylo to see. He hadn't been able to gather the wherewithal to do it himself, so his Mistress—she stepped in. Because of course she would. Why wouldn’t she? She was the one who wanted him to go.

He felt like a shell. He felt like a failure.

But she called him the evening after his intake session with the therapist—a man with a soft voice and reserved demeanor—to see how he was doing. Somewhere amidst the bleakness of his soul, he recognized that. That she was caring about him. That she was trying to do what was best for him.

“Hard,” he mumbled. 

“I’m sure,” she cooed. “But hard in a good way?”

Kylo didn’t know.

Qui-Gon had sat opposite him, letting him talk about what he wanted to talk about. That was what he hated about therapists. They felt like they were lying in wait, waiting for you to say something and then they’d pounce. That was his mother’s M.O., after all.  _ How was your day, Ben,  _ and then the second he let slip something, she’d get her teeth into him and never once let go.  _ I’m not allowed to have my own life! _ he’d yelled at her once. He’d never felt like he could have his own brain either. And his Master made him feel like he couldn’t have his own body. That had felt right.

“If the experience with your Master was so terrible, why did you look for another one?” Qui-Gon had asked gently towards the end of the session. “You don’t need to answer that now, but think about it. We’ll revisit next time. How does 6:30 on Friday sound?”

Kylo swallowed. “My Mistress and I meet at 6:30 on Fridays,” he said slowly.

That was when Qui-Gon’s eyes had hardened. “I think you should make some of your own decisions in your own life sometimes, Kylo. Isn’t that some of why you’re here?”

He didn’t know why he was there. He felt so lost. Afraid in a way he didn’t know how to understand. He understood the fear of the physical, of a leather strap, and being hit till he bruised. He never really had to understand this particular fear. 

“He wants me to come in at 6:30 on Friday for our next session,” he told her. “I didn’t want to say yes without talking to you, first.”

Her response was immediate. “Therapy always comes first. Even if he wants you in the middle of a Saturday, go to therapy.” He let out a slow breath. He’d known she’d say that. So he emailed Qui-Gon to confirm the appointment.

It wasn’t a good appointment.

“I don’t know anything else,” he whispered to Qui-Gon when he repeated the question they’d ended their last session on. “I’ve been doing this since I was nineteen.”

“Then I think it’s time you learned, don’t you? All these rules and guidelines—having someone literally control your life. I worry those will stymie your healing. It doesn’t have to be for forever. But this world you’ve immersed yourself in has caused harm and you deserve to heal.”

“I took a break from it,” Kylo snapped angrily. “For a whole year. I—”

“You said you were looking for new Masters and experiencing rejection after rejection. That’s not a break. That’s not you saying  _ enough _ .”

“If I’m just stopping because you tell me to, how is that different?” Kylo fired back. He was angry.  _ You get angry when you’re afraid,  _ his mother had once told him. Always with the fucking analyzing.  _ Why are you afraid? _

_ Because I don’t have control. _

Qui-Gon’s next question caught him by surprise. “You don’t like to be told what to do, do you? Why is it different when you wear a collar?”

Kylo stared at him. Words failed him—until they didn’t. “Because I don’t have to fight for myself. Someone else does it for me. I’m so tired of fighting for myself.”

“Did your Master fight for you?”

“No, but my Mistress does. She’s the reason I’m here at all.”

Qui-Gon leaned back. “Instead of being too tired to fight for yourself,” he hummed, thinking. “What made you so tired of that?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be talking about what my Master did to me?”

“We are, and we will. But what you just said—that sounded like it came in before your Master. So let’s pause and look at that and see what he was able to build on, and see what we can shake his foundations on.”

Kylo hated talking about his family. Hated thinking about them.

But Qui-Gon, like a therapist, just like his mother, dug in. 

He’d never felt as empty as when he drifted across the threshold of his Mistress’ house. He felt listless, wrung dry. This week had been eight hundred years long at least. He’d lived his entire life and gone to therapy twice in the span of seven days. He’d barely slept.

“Eat,” she told him and he did.

Later, she told him to sleep and he did that too.

-

She let him sleep in her bed again on Friday night. It was so different having him there. Her bed was queen-sized, but he had to sleep on his side and tuck his knees up or else his feet would extend over the end. He was also a furnace, and Rey had to throw the blankets half off her so as not to overheat. He tossed and turned, but did not wake.

Rey didn’t sleep well. She hadn’t all week. 

“I sent him to a therapist,” was all she’d told Ahsoka.

“Good,” was all Ahsoka had said in reply. It was one of the shortest phone calls they’d ever had and it did nothing to soothe Rey’s nerves that she was doing the right thing, that this was going to help him more than hurt him. 

The vaguely catatonic state he’d been in when he’d arrived hadn’t soothed her nerves. But at least he was sleeping. She woke before him the next morning and cooked him breakfast. 

He drifted into her dining room an hour later. “Eat,” she told him again, and he did. “Did you sleep well?”

He blinked slowly. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I did.”

“Good,” she replied, and she reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I don’t have play planned for this weekend.”

He froze. “I can handle it, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said carefully.

She knew he was going to say that. And luckily, she was prepared for it. “I need to make sure I can handle it,” she told him. “If I’m not in the right frame of mind for it, then neither of us is.” He did not relax. “How was your session last night?”

“Fine,” he said carefully. He was avoiding her eyes. 

“Kylo,” she intoned. “What have I told you about honesty?”

“He doesn’t want me to play anymore,” he said quietly. “He thinks it will detract from my healing.” Just as he had predicted the weekend prior. Rey wasn’t surprised at all.

“But that’s not what you want,” Rey observed. “Why do you want this? Not me, necessarily. But,” she waved a hand, “This. A Domme. This lifestyle.”

Kylo looked down at his hands. “Believe it or not, I do actually like it,” he said quietly. “When it’s good. It’s…” he looked up at her. “It’s fulfilling. It makes me feel like I’m not a complete waste of space and energy. Like I’m good for something. It’s stimulating and…” he sighed and looked away again. “He isn’t  _ it _ . If that makes sense. I like it. I don’t—I…”

“So you want it without him.”

“How am I supposed to know if it’s actually good if I don’t try it without him?”

“That contradicts what you just said, though,” Rey said as gently as she could.

He blinked a lot very quickly. Blinking back tears. It was distressing him that she was pushing this hard. She was making it harder for him, not easier. When he looked at her it was with the eyes of a drowning man. “I—I—” But whatever was distressing him, he couldn’t put words to it. She waited. She watched him breathe slowly, watched him try to take bites of breakfast. He looked like he’d lost weight this week. He probably had. “I feel good around you,” he whispered. “Calmer. Better. When I was submitting to you, it felt like it was supposed to. Like what I wanted it to feel like. Like what I thought I could make it feel like, except there was never any winning with him. I don’t want to stop seeing you. I’m scared that if I do and I don’t heal, that means I’m broken beyond repair.” He swallowed. 

“I don’t want to stop seeing you either.” Why it was a whisper, she wasn’t sure, but she felt like she couldn’t breathe because one breath would knock him over. She had told him as much the weekend before, but he’d been so all over the place that he might not have internalized it now. It felt different, this time. “But maybe we cool it down for a bit. Change the frameworks. A compromise. I don’t have the power to command you to do anything—you can always say no—but we can still have guidelines about what we mean to one another and do for one another.” Some frameworks might even help him. Rey knew that when she’d started having to take a firmer hand in taking care of herself, Ahsoka’s rules had forced her to actually do basic things she might have neglected otherwise, even if her therapist was so determined that she do them. It felt easier to obey Ahsoka than to actively take care of herself back then.

She saw a stinging defeat cross his face.

“Look,” she added, “Just because you’re afraid doesn’t mean you’re broken, and just because we cool down doesn’t mean we have to stop seeing one another completely. This isn’t a rejection of you. But I’d be a bad Domme if I didn’t listen to your therapist’s advice on your care after you got triggered during one of my scenes. If it’s to make it so that you  _ can _ keep playing, and we can do this again.”

“Should I take off my collar, then?” Every word seemed to pain him as he bit them out. He was refusing to look at her and this time, she could tell, it wasn’t deference. It was that he couldn’t bear the answer to the question. 

“What do you want?” she asked quietly and his eyes shot up to stare at her. His eyes get bright and he moved his lips as though trying to chew back his feelings. 

“No one ever asks me that,” he muttered. “Not my mom, not—not the Other. But you always ask me that.”

She took his hand, lacing her fingers through each of his. “What you want matters to me,” she said. “I want you to heal, I want this to be easier. I know that some of your choices won’t make it that way which is why I’m trying to be firm. But what you want matters. It matters to me.”

He was staring at their fingers. 

“Can you believe that?” she asked him.

He looked up again, and nodded once. 

“I want to wear it.” His voice trembled.

“Then you’ll wear it,” she said. 

“But what does this mean now, though?”

Rey paused. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “But I’ll think and we’ll decide together. What do you want it to look like?”

He didn’t reply right away. But his hand tightened in hers. It was anchoring. She felt—

Something washed over her. Not warmth, not security, and yet somehow both of those things. She hadn’t realized until just this moment how afraid she was of losing him to this. How afraid she was that she’d fail him, or let him down, or make it worse. How afraid she was that he’d walk out that door and never come back, because that’s what people always did in the end—never come back for her, because she wasn’t enough for them.

And maybe she had. Maybe she had triggered him. Maybe she had unintentionally enabled him. But they would work their way through it together. And they’d be better for one another because of it. 

-

His Mistress gave him homework after breakfast. She handed him a notepad and paper and told him to take the day and make a new checklist. Things he wanted, things he didn’t want, things he needed, things he wouldn’t be able to bear. “We’ll compare notes at the end of the day.”

He stared at the paper for over an hour while she went on a walk.

He didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know what this meant.  _ Is this supposed to be things we do together, or things that we do on our own? _

Even as his mind produced the question, he could hear her voice saying,  _ Whatever you want it to be. _

The freedom was terrifying. But he didn’t want to disappoint her, so he began to write.

_ Food _

  * _Eating non-processed food meals_


  * Breakfast every day


  * Healthy snacks


  * Protein



He stared at it. It wasn’t anything new—he’d had meal plans from his Master and then again from his Mistress for the past ten years. But it felt different this time. This wasn’t to prepare his body for someone else’s pleasure. This was creating a guideline for himself. 

He shifted on her couch and added,

_ Workout Plan _

  * _Go to the gym at least four times a week for an hour_


  * Cardio for thirty minutes a day


  * Weight training



He stared at the two little lists he’d made.

Both were doable. Both were familiar. Both were loosely inspired by the guidelines he’d had for years.  _ What do you want this to look like? _

_ I want to see you. I want you to see me. I want to see you smile. I want to make you smile. _

So he added a new header:

_ Weekend Play _

He twirled the pencil over and over in his fingers as he stared at them. He suspected that she was going to be resistant to any sort of sexual play after the weekend before and after saying she wasn’t ready this weekend. But he wanted… wanted to do some things where he could serve her. Right?

  * _I cook meals_


  * I help with laundry


  * Foot massages (?)



What else could he do? Whenever the Other had had non-sexual play, it had been things like  _ you’ll be a coffee table while I have guests. And you’ll be naked _ . So it was inherently sexual. 

He couldn’t fathom that being of interest to his Mistress.

_ It’s not of interest to you either. _

_ And what you want matters to her. _

What did he want?

He hated that the question felt daunting rather than empowering. It was like she was handing him the world on a platter and he was too paralyzed by what he saw there to make any choices at all. 

She returned from her walk, a frown creasing between her eyebrows. 

“Everything okay?” he asked her before he could stop himself.

She shrugged, and seemed to relax a little. “I’ve been having trouble getting hold of a friend,” she said. 

He nodded. It took him a moment to realize that that feeling in his chest—that burning, ugly feeling—that was jealousy. She had friends. She had other people she wanted to talk to, who wanted to talk to her. 

He looked down at his checklist again.

Maybe this wasn’t one for his Mistress, but it was one for his therapist.

  * _Make friend._



Not that he had any fucking clue how to do that. 

It made him want to throw his pad of paper across the room. He’d  _ never _ really had friends. Not even the friends of convenience one has in high school. And he’d dropped out of college, of course, because his Master had told him to. It was just not a social skill he’d ever learned. How to be charming and funny and witty and warm. 

All things his Mistress was.

Which was why she had friends, and he didn’t.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

He hadn’t heard her come into the room.

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“Kylo,” she repeated with that warning tone, the one that meant she wanted—demanded—his honesty.

“I don’t have friends,” he muttered. “I don’t know how to make friends.”

She frowned. “And you want friends?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. He always had. His parents had so many friends. Easy, lasting friendships. Uncle Luke did too.

He didn’t.

Had his Master gotten in the way of that?

He turned back to his notepad and began to write.

  * _Go back to college_



He stared at the words. What would he even study? When he’d first gone to college, he’d fancied himself an art major.  _ Art Major? Why waste your parents’ money on that? I’ll make art out of you,  _ his Master had whispered and he’d shivered.

He didn’t want to be an artist anymore. It had been ages since he’d drawn anything.

  * _Draw_



He didn’t even have good paper at home to draw with. He did have some money in his bank account though. Maybe he could take himself to an art shop and get some good quality paper and some good pencils. 

The next thought that crossed his mind made his breath stop in his chest. 

His Mistress was sitting in one of her armchairs—the same one he’d spent a movie eating her out in. She was working on her own pad of paper, periodically checking her phone. She glanced his way once and gave him a soft smile. 

He looked back down at his paper and wrote,

  * _Draw Mistress_



Draw her naked, draw her in sweatpants, just draw her. He hadn’t been half-bad at drawing portraits. And he’d been in a figure drawing class when he’d dropped out of college.

  * _Take some business classes maybe._


  * Ask Operations team if I can shadow



It was like his mother invaded his body with the last one. How many times had she told him to try doing something like that before he’d blocked her number?

He swallowed.

  * _Call mom._



He crossed that one out. He wasn’t ready for that one.

He stared at it for a long time, though, and it made it hard to make any progress on the rest of it at all.

-

“What do you have?” Rey asked over dinner. He flushed, but handed it to her. 

She scanned the column quickly.

It was at first recognizable as a plan, but had quickly spiraled off into other topics. It felt like prying into something private when she saw  _ Call mom  _ crossed out. 

“Comparing our meal and workout plans, we seem to be mostly in alignment,” she said. He wasn’t looking at her. Deference? Nerves? Embarrassment?

She didn’t know.

And she didn’t like not knowing. It set her teeth on edge.

“But before we get to that, I’d like to discuss modes of address and interaction.” He looked at her warily.  _ This could go poorly.  _ It was never a good idea to make boundaries less rigid. But she had a feeling that it would be good for him. Especially if he were to bring this back to a therapist who thought he shouldn’t be doing it at all. “I think you should call me Rey, and not sir or Mistress for the time being. I think you should feel free to look at me, and ask me questions as an equal.”

His eyes widened and she saw confusion, hesitation, discontent swirling in those huge brown eyes. “Why?”

“Because I worry if you feel constrained, you won’t be able to heal the way you need to,” she said. “I think that providing frameworks will be good, and we can and will have those. But I don’t like the idea of you ever thinking you’re lesser than me, or subservient.” Before he could interrupt—a sign that she was right, though she wouldn’t point that out unless she needed to—she added, “I told you before: your submission is a gift. And if you’re still fighting the belief that you are my equal even if I’m calling the shots, then I want to remove any structure that enforces that.”

He frowned, but said nothing. She saw his thumb reach under his three middle fingers to trace the ring she’d given him. “You’ll still be mine, but—” and the thought hit her and made her face brighten. Her voice grew stronger. “We talked once about how Mistress can be an equalizing term in some ways, rather than one aligned with power structures.”

“But I want you to be the kind we agreed to,” he said. “I  _ want _ to show you deference.”

“Would you be respectful if you had a mistress? A lover and an equal? Would you treat her well and speak kindly of her to others and do nice things for her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had a mistress.” He paused though, considering. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, I would.”

“So then treat me as a mistress. I’ll still be your Mistress, but treat me as you would otherwise. I’m sure,” she added, “that when you’ve made more progress, it will be easier to slip back into our previously defined roles.”

He was breathing in and out. His face was an open book and she could see just how much it was taking for him to process.  _ So much change. If he likes the stability, this is hard for him. _

It was hard for her too. If things changed too much, in a way he didn’t like, he’d leave. 

_ Don’t think that way,  _ she told herself. Part of what  _ she _ liked about all this was that the attachment was, fundamentally, contractual. It wasn’t about feelings, or heartbreak, it wasn’t romantic. It was openly negotiated and it meant that if people walked away, there weren’t hard feelings, there wasn’t heartbreak, there wasn’t Rey sitting on the floor, sobbing that nothing ever went the way things were supposed to go. 

He was allowed to leave her. Especially if it meant that he was leaving this lifestyle which had hurt him so much. It wasn’t about her.

And if she was sure of one thing right now, it was that he wasn’t going to leave—at least not yet. Maybe one day, with time and healing. But not right now. Not right away. And she needed to focus on the now, because if she didn’t, there wouldn’t  _ be _ a future.

“I’m willing to try,” he said at last, looking at her again. “It may be a hard limit for me.”

“We’ll try,” she said. “And revisit if we need to.”

At last, he nodded. “Ok.”

“How do you feel about taking yoga classes together?” she asked and his eyes widened. He hadn’t expected the subject transition so quickly.

“Yoga?”

“Have you ever done it?”

“No.”

“I started when I was in therapy a few years ago. I like it a lot. It would be nice to do together maybe once a week. We can get dinner afterwards and check in not on weekend time.” She frowned. “Assuming you’re comfortable with seeing one another during the week. So much of all this is uncharted territory.”

“Week times are fine,” he said. “I used to see my Master during the weeks when he wanted. But not for yoga classes.”

“It will fit in with your fitness plan as well,” she said. 

“Would we go out to eat, or would I cook for you?” he asked.

“We could go out,” she said. “Or whatever. If you want to cook—”

“I’d like to,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I’m appreciative of when you cook for me, but I like cooking for you. It’s calming.”

“Then you’ll cook me dinner,” she said with a smile. “Should I stop cooking on weekends?”

He frowned. “If I continue to have Friday evening sessions, then you should maybe cook Friday dinner. I’ll do the rest though.”

Rey wrote it down. 

“I like foot massages,” she added with a grin. He tried to smile but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I want to serve you,” he said quietly. “Even if it’s not… I don’t know. I want to make you feel good.”

She reached out to him and squeezed his hand. “Are you worried this won’t make me feel good?”

He nodded.

“Are you worried this won’t make you feel good?”

He looked away, and she knew the answer to that question. Her heart ached. “What do you think about my drawing you sometime?”

Her mouth went dry. She tried to imagine what it would be like to sit there, posing for him. What would he want to draw? How would she be dressed? Would she be dressed?

The idea of him watching her that closely for that long, paying attention to every little detail of her face, her body, his hands creating her anew… 

“I’d like that,” Rey said quietly, heat creeping up her face. She wondered if he knew what it meant to her—that he wanted to. That he thought her worth the time to draw. No one had ever really thought she was worth spending that much time on.

This time, when he smiled, it didn’t seem forced.

“I don’t want you to punish yourself,” she said. He frowned as if confused. “The other night, when you hit yourself. Don’t do that.” His face went a little pale. “I don’t know if you have a history of self-harm, or if your previous Dom made you feel as though you had to punish yourself for failing him, but I don’t want you to punish yourself. Do you understand?”

He paused for a moment, then nodded.

There was one thing left. One part of the conversation she’d really been dreading.

“Sex,” Rey said at last and he blinked at her. “I know we talked about cooling things down,” and she saw excitement begin to burn in his eyes, “but I think that we could discuss continuing to engage sexually if you take your collar off while we do it. If we have sex, it can’t be in any way because you feel compelled to do it.”

The fire died.

“No,” he growled. “I don’t want that.”

“Then it is off the table for the time being,” she said. “Though I give you full permission to touch yourself whenever you want.”

“All right,” he said quietly.

“I know it’s disappointing, but I didn’t want to rule it out.”

“I know.” He looked away from her and sighed. “I just got my hopes up.” He paused. “Why don’t you want it?”

“Collared sex?” Rey asked.

“Yes.”

She looked down at her hands. She tried to imagine it, just as she had that afternoon. Tried to imagine being in bed with him. She knew herself well enough to know she could be demanding, that she could be commanding—just as much as she could follow someone else’s lead. “I don’t feel comfortable with it at the moment,” she said and she looked back at him. “I’m saying no to it for me and my limitations. Not because of you.” He raised his eyebrows. “A little bit because of you,” she corrected. “But I can’t push myself to do things I’m not comfortable with. I told you before—I don’t want to command you right now. I don’t want there to be a shadow of a doubt in my mind that if I tell you to do something, you’re doing it because you want to, not because you feel you have to. That would make me uncomfortable in an encounter, so I don’t want to do it now. I’m saying no for me.”

“Because I would really hate to make you happy in bed,” he grumbled sarcastically. He was missing the point. She understood why, but it was frustrating. 

So she asked, “Why don’t you want to have uncollared sex?” 

“Because then it’ll really just feel like we’re pretending,” he said. “We’re pretending that I’m your submissive and not your… I don’t know. Lover. That you’re my mistress and not my Mistress. If we’re not having sex, then at least I can view that as a parameter, rather than some feeble negotiation to make me not feel like I’m a wreck.”

Rey looked down at her hands, trying not to let them sting. She’d been hopeful that he would want that, would leap at the opportunity.  _ Is it a feeble negotiation? _

She wished she’d been able to reach Ahsoka that morning. She wished desperately that she had.

“You’re not a wreck,” she said firmly.

“I am,” he responded and the force with which he said it, the full intensity of his gaze almost took her breath away. “I always have been.”

“You won’t always be,” she told him.

“Trends suggest otherwise,” he growled. Why was he angry suddenly? Because she’d told him that they could have uncollared sex? 

He sagged. “But I’ll try, I guess. Fighting for myself, or whatever.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, thank you so much for your wonderful kind reviews. I continue to be in a place where I can't properly reply to them and I'm so sorry for that. Brain drain is very real.
> 
> I forgot to mention at the last chapter—this fic draft is now complete! So updates will be regular-ish through the end of the month. 
> 
> Triggers in the endnotes!

He was running late. There had been a late postal arrival of some boxes that did not have a recipient marked and he’d spent over an hour hunting down the person in question before remembering that he had yoga that night.

His Mistress—Rey. She wanted him to call her Rey. Rey had reserved a time for them to go to yoga together on Wednesday evening from six to seven. He would then take her back to his place—he’d spent the past few days deep cleaning it—and cook her dinner. 

But of course he was late to yoga. It was 5:55pm by the time he was even out of the office and he texted her in a panic.  _ Running late but I’ll be there. _

It was 6:15 when he arrived at the yoga studio, and had to argue his way past some woman in spandex and a high ponytail that he’d paid for his slot—Rey had—and that if they didn’t want him to go through that door, they should give him a refund. He always forgot how intimidating he could look as he towered over her and she got visibly more nervous. He forgot that he was tall, and broad, and jacked and he felt sort of bad as the yoga lady stood aside and let him go into the studio.

Not that bad though. 

The first thing he saw when he stepped into the studio was Rey, her ass high in the air as she did a downward dog and it took him a second to remember that he should probably try to do that too. He grabbed a mat from one of the shelves and unrolled it next to her. She had changed positions, and was now standing with her arms in front of her chest as if in prayer. She gave him a sidelong glance, then smiled. He smiled back.

And remembered sharply that he had never done yoga in his life. The instructor at the front of the room didn’t seem to be batting an eyelash that he’d joined late, and continued to call out different poses that meant little and less to him. But he did his best to follow her demonstrations, or when he couldn’t see her clearly, look at Rey who was moving next to him with perfectly precise form.

Good god, her form was incredible. He’d seen her naked, in lingerie that still got his blood boiling, but somehow seeing her there in a spaghetti-strap tank-top and yoga pants… he could see the definition of her muscles, the way they bulged and moved with every pose. He wasn’t used to seeing her breasts in a sports bra, but he rather liked the effect. But mostly it was just—

Maybe it was because he’d thought about drawing her but he was noticing angles he’d never noticed before—her neck when she rolled her head from side to side, her knees and hips when she went into a warrior pose. There was an art to her—one he was sure he would never match, clumsy and huge as he was. 

The lesson passed uneventfully. It seemed short, until he remembered that he’d been late to it. There was a lovely flush to Rey’s face as they rolled up their mats, a slight sheen of sweat—not enough to warrant an immediate shower but enough to make her glow.

“Sorry I was late,” he said as they left together. 

She shrugged. “It’s a gym class.”

“I shouldn’t be late,” he muttered. It chafed him, that she brushed him off.

_ Do you want her to yell at you? To punish you? _

Qui-Gon had been pleasantly surprised with the changes to his and Rey’s relationship when Kylo had detailed them in therapy yesterday. He’d even been pleased about the checklist exercise, had excitedly fixated on Kylo’s wanting to go back to school, to draw more. Kylo had been hugely relieved coming out of that meeting and texted Rey to say  _ He thinks our current arrangement might be sustainable. He has reservations, but he thinks this is better.  _ Even if he wasn’t sure that it was, in fact, better. But it was something. A compromise in the right direction.

A compromise that still made Kylo feel on edge, because even if Rey told him not to punish himself, he was late.

_ She should be mad at me. I was late. I didn’t prioritize her. I didn’t prioritize us. _

He prioritized a fucking delivery.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and she gave him a look. 

“We never discussed what happens if one of us is late,” she said with a frown. “I provided no guidelines that you must be on time.” She pulled out her phone. “You texted me. Why are you feeling bad about it?”

His mind drew a blank. Nothing could really explain that anxious feeling in his stomach as they walked to the bus stop together and then took the bus back to his apartment. He put the fish he’d been marinating in the oven while Rey showered quickly.

“You have a nice place,” she said when she came out. Her hair was dry. She must have stood without it getting under the water. 

“Not really,” he said. “It’s a dump compared to yours.”

His was a studio, his bed was practically in the kitchen, and he’d shoved all the junk he didn’t know what to do with in the closet by the door so she wouldn’t see the mess of it. Hers was an actual house, with a yard, and separate rooms.  _ I’m really going to have to keep this place clean if she’s going to come over regularly.  _ Oddly, this didn’t feel as daunting as it should have. He hated cleaning, but cleaning for Rey? He thought he could do that.

“Size doesn’t indicate whether something is nice or not,” she said. “I’d have killed to have a place like this when—” She cut herself off. A flush creeped up her cheeks.

“When?” he prodded as he turned his attention to the salad.

“When I didn’t have a lot going for me,” she said. “I had a bit of a nontraditional path.” That made him pause. He would never have known that, looking at her. She never really talked about her past.

“Don’t you work in finance?”

“After community college and a lot of hustle,” she said, running her hands over the stone countertop that was the closest thing to a wall his studio had between the kitchen and the rest of everything. “Even if it was small, it would have been better than some of the roommate situations I found myself in. It’s nice to have your own space.”

Kylo grunted. 

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“About six years,” he said. “Used to be in a different place, but my Master—” he cut himself off. 

“Your Master?” her voice was so casual, but he heard the steeliness to it, the one that seemed to say,  _ you still call him your Master.  _ It wasn’t accusatory. It reminded him of Qui-Gon. It reminded him of his mother.

Kylo took a long, slow breath. “I know what you’re doing,” he muttered.

“What am I doing?”

“Trying to show me he’s a person and not something to be afraid of.”

“He  _ is _ a person and not something to be afraid of,” Rey agreed. “But mostly I’m just trying to know more about you. We have to talk about something, right?”

“It doesn’t have to be him,” Kylo bit out.

There was a pause, a beat, a breath.

“No, it doesn’t have to be him,” she said at last.

And he felt shame. Shame for getting angry, for lashing out. For feeling unequal to what she’d been tacitly asking him. 

“Snoke.” He swallowed. “I don’t actually think I ever knew if he had another name. A first or a last, or a real name. I just heard other Doms call him Snoke sometimes. And that was the name on my initial application.”

He almost jumped out of his skin when Rey ran her hand up and down his spine. She didn’t say anything. When he glanced at her, he could see in her eyes that she knew how big a deal it was that he’d said it.  _ As big a deal as calling her Rey?  _ That felt easier than it should. Some initial discomfort, but now it was easy enough. But Snoke was always his Master. Even when he was calling him  _ the Other _ , it hadn’t fit properly. It felt like he was still there, leering in the back of his mind.

But calling him Snoke…

Kylo swallowed.

“Anyway,” he said. “I used to be at a different place, but  _ Snoke _ ,” he said the name slowly, purposefully. Rey’s hand kept tracing up and down his spine. “Snoke thought I should move.” He swallowed. His mouth felt dry. Ordinarily he’d stop. He wanted to stop. He didn’t want to talk about this. Not really. But Rey’s hand was soothing, and there was some inkling in the back of his mind that if he told her, she wouldn’t castigate him for what he’d done. “My mom would sometimes show up and try and get me to talk to her and he didn’t like that. I didn’t like it either.”

“Because you didn’t like her, or—”

“Because she always wanted me to be something I wasn’t,” he burst out. He continued to skirt around the subject with Qui-Gon, but it was different, somehow, with Rey. Logically, he knew that Qui-Gon was supposed to think his feelings mattered, but Kylo couldn’t quite believe it. 

It was odd: his Master should have beaten the trust of a Dom right out of him, but it was Leia’s meddling that he felt far more acutely. 

Maybe that was why he kept going, even though the last thing he ever wanted to talk about with anyone was his mother. “She never trusted me to let me figure it out on my own. She wanted to give me a path and for me to follow it.” He felt like crying. Why did it still hurt so much after all this time? Why? He had cut her out of his life, but Leia Organa’s final revenge was always making it so you couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop caring. 

Rey didn’t say anything. She was still rubbing his back. He wondered if she was aware of that. It helped. He wondered if she knew how much it helped.

“Anyway,” he continued a little thickly, “she used to come around and try and get me to go back to school, or try and get me to come round for dinner. Snoke thought it would be better to just cut ties, so I moved here. Didn’t tell her where she could find me. Changed my name and stuff.” By the time he was done, he was mumbling. He didn’t need Rey’s castigation to hear what the word sounded like in his own ears. Picking the Master who never cared about him over the mother who did, even if her caring also hurt. Did anyone’s caring not hurt?

Rey’s hand was still rubbing his back. 

He wanted to cry.

“What was your name before?” There was a warmth to the question he wasn’t expecting. Not a judgment thing, or...he didn’t know what. 

“Ben,” he said. “Ben Solo.”

It was a name he hadn’t heard in a long time. A name he hadn’t thought about in a long time. When he’d gotten it changed, it had felt like slamming a door shut on the life he’d had before, on the life that existed beyond his Master, and the lifestyle. 

“I like the name Ben,” Rey said quietly.

_ Kylo, I think. I like the name Kylo,  _ his Master had whispered in his ear. 

His throat went thick.

He’d forgotten about that. 

Or maybe just never thought about it that way before.

“Kylo?”

Because his fist had come down hard on the counter top and was doing it again now. Rey grabbed his hand, held it firm. 

He jerked it away from her, reeling a little bit, and stumbled towards the bathroom.

He wasn’t sick this time. He breathed heavily, felt like he might heave at any moment, but he wasn’t sick. 

He heard the oven timer beep for the fish and stared at himself in the mirror. He wanted to punch his reflection, make his hand bleed, make the image of Kylo Ren and Ben Solo go away.

“Should I take the fish out?” Rey called.

_ Come on,  _ he told himself.  _ One foot in front of the other. _

_ You’ve faced worse. _

It was oddly calming.

He stepped out of the bathroom. “I got it,” he said. “Remember? I cook for you.”

Rey was worried. He could see it in every line of her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have—”

“You can call me Ben if you like,” he heard himself say as he opened the oven. The warm, dry heat was centering. 

“Are you sure?” she asked him. “Because you just—”

“That was because my Master named me Kylo. I’d forgotten that.” The words were acid in his mouth. 

“Ben, then,” Rey replied and it felt—

Well it felt like everything was washing away.

Like he was really getting to start over this time.

-

Ahsoka called her on Thursday night.

“I found out more about the Snoke,” she said darkly without preamble. “He’s fucking mental.”

Rey’s mouth went dry. She turned on speaker phone and put the phone down on her bed to continue putting her laundry away. 

“Yeah, I bet,” Rey said, remembering how intensely Kylo—Ben—

Ben had reacted when he’d been making her dinner. 

“So first off,” Ahsoka said, “He has a reputation for pain. Which, like, we knew.”

“We did,” Rey agreed.

“But apparently he got run out of his previous community because he didn’t have good safe-wording practices. Apparently one of the subs in that community found out because they were talking about times they’d safeworded with his then-sub and it came out.”

“This doesn’t surprise me,” Rey said as she folded her yoga pants. 

“This person I talked to—apparently after that, Snoke never let his subs talk to other subs which is like…”

“Big Red Flag?” 

“Yup. I asked if he knew Kylo, but he didn’t. He only knew Snoke before he got to Crait.”

“How did he get run out? Was it just that he got confronted by other Doms?” Rey didn’t know anyone in the scene here yet. She’d chatted with a few people over text, enough to know that there were some play parties coming up, but nothing super integrated just yet. She’d been too nervous to try and make the real connections. Because what if they saw through her? What if she somehow wasn’t good enough for them?

“Apparently,” Ahsoka said. “Apparently all the subs stood up for this other sub of his. Does Kylo have any sub friends he could try and get to help him? I bet Snoke’s safewording hasn’t gotten less terrible.”

_ I don’t have friends,  _ Kylo had muttered to her while working on his list. She had a horrible thought that she was  _ sure _ was right. “I don’t think Snoke let him interact with other subs,” she said. “He spent a lot of time trying to isolate him. Make him dependent on him.”  _ Keep him away from his mother who wanted to help, even if she wasn’t necessarily going about it right. _

“Fuck this guy,” Ahsoka growled. “How’s Kylo doing? How’s therapy?”

Bitterness washed over her, as though only just now was she realizing how hurtful it had been for Ahsoka to just leave her like that, without any explanation. “Now you’re asking? And not when I could have used your help?” There was a long pause. “He’s doing ok,” she said before Ahsoka could say anything else. She didn’t want to hear her apologize, or hear her make some kind of excuse. She didn’t want Ahsoka to know how much it hurt her to be blown off like that, especially when she was so stressed out by everything. She didn’t want to think about how much it had hit old wounds. “He’s been going twice a week, and we reframed the parameters of our relationship while he heals. He got triggered during a scene, and it was awful.”

Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want Ahsoka to hear her cry, or for Ahsoka to tell her  _ I told you so _ . 

She just wanted—

“That sounds really hard,” Ahsoka said quietly. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you.”

“You know if you had to go and warn me constantly this might happen, the least you could do would have been to actually pick up your phone.” She knew she sounded like a whiny child. She knew it. But at least she wasn’t sobbing  _ come back!  _ after a beaten up old car.

“I know.” Guilt haunted Ahsoka’s voice. Rey couldn’t decide if that was comforting or not.

“Why?” Rey choked out. “Why weren’t you there?”  _ It hurt. It hurt so much.  _ The floodgates were opening. She’d be crying soon if she wasn’t careful.

Ahsoka sighed. “Because I was mad that you were in this situation to begin with. Because I was sitting there, trying to dig in more about this fucking asshole and you were ignoring me, and I was worried you’d ignore whatever I found because you seemed to be seeing what you wanted to see. And I don’t know how to let you fuck up. You’re not my sub, but I still care about you, and want what’s best for you and it’s  _ hard _ , not having you just take my word and do what I say, even if you’re a brat about it.” She paused then. “I didn’t handle it well and I’m sorry. Please know that it’s not that I didn’t care. It’s that I cared too much.”

“You know it makes it worse to hear you say that, right?” Rey demanded.

“Yeah, I know. But it’s the truth. We only ever speak honestly, right?” Rey shivered. Having to coax Ben towards the honesty she had only ever known as Ahsoka’s sub, an honesty that was second nature to her…

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed.

“You’ll learn this one way or another—you don’t just stop caring about your previous subs. Your relationship changes, you might never see them again, but you don’t stop caring. It’s too intense a relationship for that.”

“Yeah,” Rey repeated quietly.

Somehow she doubted very much that Snoke still cared about Kylo.

She didn’t think he’d ever cared about Kylo at all.

-

He spent the rest of the week reeling. 

He had spent such a long time violently trying to erase the memory that he had ever been  _ Ben _ that he’d forgotten where the name Kylo had come from. Or he’d turned a blind eye to it. Or he’d…

He’d…

He didn’t know. Around and around and around his mind spun as he paced the marketing room. Had he wanted so desperately to stop being under his mother’s thumb that he hadn’t recognized what his Master—what Snoke—was doing to him? Had he wanted it? Had he thought he deserved it?

He tried to remember Ben Solo, but only pain lay there. His mother’s attention felt choking, his father’s ambivalence was numbing, his uncle—

Ben banged his fist against one of the metal shelves and a bunch of t-shirts fell to the ground.  _ She won’t like that—signs of aggression.  _

_ Or punishing myself. _

Every time he’d done something, her hand had appeared from out of nowhere to stop him. She’d forbidden him from punishing himself, and yet the only thoughts he had right now were how stupid he was, how foolish and naive and gullible.  _ It’s what I deserved, what I thought I deserved,  _ over and over and over again, until he forgot what direction was up and what was down.

But he knew one thing: 

As confusing as the name Ben was to him, he couldn’t be Kylo anymore.  _ You’re mine, forever,  _ the name seemed to say to him, and he wasn’t. He didn’t want to be. 

Rey liked the name Ben.

So did Qui-Gon, when he asked him to call him Ben moving forward in their next session.

“Do you think you’ll legally change your name back?” Qui-Gon asked him.

“I’ll change it to something,” Ben replied. “I don’t know if it’ll be Ben or something else. Something I choose,” he added. 

Qui-Gon looked at him approvingly, and told him about how quickly he seemed to be making progress, which led Ben to tell him how he’d spent about eighty percent of the week in the marketing room because it felt safer when his head was reeling. It had been more to prove Qui-Gon wrong, that he  _ wasn’t _ proceeding quickly, but Qui-Gon had—just like his mother—twisted it, and made it about how he was  _ trying  _ to keep himself safe, and sane, while he was breaking and remaking himself. And that that was an act of preservation, something that he was historically pretty bad at. 

“Hiding isn’t an act of cowardice, it’s an act of coping. An act of self-soothing.”

Which had just made him mad, because what did Qui-Gon Jinn know about anything?

He went to Rey’s house a little angry and a lot tired, but walking through her door sent a sense of calm flowing through him.  _ I feel safe here.  _ Even if he’d melted down the one time, the space on the whole felt safe to him. Safer than Snoke’s world and dungeon ever had.

Rey was putting food on the table, a thick, creamy soup that looked like it would fill him up in one sip. “Therapy ok?” she asked.

He nodded but didn’t say more. He didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to feel warm and happy to be here, even if she wasn’t going to touch him all weekend. 

“I was thinking,” she said as they made their way through the soup. “You said you wanted to draw me. Do you want to do that this weekend?”

His heart lurched. “I don’t have pencils or anything,” he said. “Or the right paper.”

“We can go get some tomorrow. You can keep it here and draw whenever you like.”

“That’d be nice,” he said. He hadn’t made it to the store yet—the past few weeks had been far too overwhelming for it, given that he felt like he was now spending half of his waking hours in therapy—but the idea of going with Rey to get art supplies made him feel lighter than he had any right to feel right now.

He couldn’t have predicted what it would actually be like, though, walking through the aisles of the little hole-in-the-wall art supply store she found. It felt achingly domestic, the two of them going shopping together. He ran his finger over the ring on his pinky out of habit as he watched Rey’s eyes widen as she looked around. Her hair was in a low ponytail, some tendrils coming loose near the front to frame her face.  _ Will she let me style her hair for when I draw her? _ Would he want to? Maybe he should learn how to take photos because he wanted to capture the split-second shine to her eye when she looked at him.

He grabbed pencils and nice paper fast enough, but she just walked around, picking up paints and reading their labels curiously. 

“Do you paint?” the store owner asked excitedly.

“Never in my life,” Rey laughed warmly. “He’s the artist, not me.” She nodded to him.

“We have classes here on Friday evenings if you’re interested. You’re never too old to learn!” the shopkeeper exclaimed. 

“We’re usually busy on Friday nights, but maybe we’ll stop by,” Rey said. Then she picked up a watercolor set and water color paper. “Could you teach me?” she asked when the shop owner faded back into the store. 

“To watercolor?” Ben asked.

“Yes.”

“Probably,” he said. 

_ I could sketch you on watercolor paper and then use the paint to color your lips, your hair, your nipples… _

But he was getting ahead of himself. He didn’t even know if she’d let him draw her naked. He didn’t even know if he was prepared to. It had been a very long time since he’d drawn. 

They had lunch at a sandwich shop, then walked back to her house. For the most part, they were quiet. Ben wondered if she was as nervous about this as he was.

“Where do you want to draw me?” she asked and he swallowed. 

“What are my parameters?” he asked. 

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What are you going to wear?”

She blinked, then narrowed her eyes. “What do you want me to wear?” He swallowed. “Ben, is this you casually asking to draw me naked?”

“More if I can. Maybe not today.”

She turned on her heel and wordlessly marched into her bedroom. He had no idea if he was supposed to follow.

He heard her rustling about in there, heard the sound of fabric hitting the floor.

When she emerged, she was wearing a sheer black-lace bra and matching thong. There was a devious twinkle to her eye as she strode towards him. “Where do you want to draw me?” she repeated.

“Living room has the best light,” he croaked at her. She did not miss that he was croaking. Her smirk widened as she threw herself into her favorite armchair and—he should have known this would happen—he felt his pulse shift southward towards his dick.

He looked at the ring on his pinky.  _ You could take it off and then you could fuck her. _

But that felt like giving in. Giving up. He didn’t know why, but it did.

He crossed to the chair and shifted her slightly. He adjusted her legs, he had her lean back against the chair a little more. He was tempted to drop one of her brastraps off her shoulder but didn’t. Not yet. Not today. Next time, maybe. “You’re probably going to be sitting for a while,” he told her. “So I want you to be comfortable.”

Then he grabbed his pencils and paper and settled down on the couch to begin.

He definitely should have started with just about literally anything else. A flower. A coffee mug. Anything. 

He started with trying to catch the general shape of her body, looping circles around her head, around her torso, at her joints. That much he remembered from the last time he’d drawn a person. But the rest? 

Fuck.

_ It doesn’t have to be perfect _ , he told himself as he began to focus on her legs. She had lovely legs. Muscular and defined. 

But he wanted it to be perfect.

Because she was perfect. So good to him—too good for him. He wanted to be able to draw the lightness in her eyes, the curve of her lips.  _ I’ll get there, _ he told himself as he made his way from her ankles to her thighs. 

The problem hit when he was staring at her hips. Her hips and that thong she was wearing, black and lacy. Did he try and capture some hint of the pattern? Did he try and draw the landing strip he could see through the sheer fabric? 

The longer he stared at her, the more he could taste her in his mouth. The more he could imagine the way that she’d been wet for him in that very chair. Was she wet for him now? 

He glanced at her breasts. Her nipples were poking through the sheer fabric. Cold? Arousal? 

His pants were getting uncomfortably tight. 

“Like what you see?” she smirked, her gaze dipping down to his jeans. He couldn’t blame her, he supposed. He’d been staring at her crotch and tits just now.

He knew she was teasing but…

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

“Good thing you’re documenting it for posterity, then?” she told him.

“Yeah,” he agreed as the thought crossed his mind. His breath hitched. “Good thing.”

If it were his Master, he wouldn’t dare. If it were Snoke, he knew there’d be a strap waiting for him at his insolence. But with Rey… with Rey he could get away with being a little bratty sometimes. 

And she’d only said they wouldn’t have sex. She’d told him he should masturbate whenever he wanted.

So he put down the pad of paper, the pencil, and unzipped his jeans, pulling himself out of his boxers and beginning to stroke.

Her eyes went wide.

“Ben—”

“You said whenever I wanted.” He tried to sound as cheeky as possible. He wished his heart weren’t hammering in his chest. 

She hummed. “I suppose I did.” Her gaze dropped to his erection. She heaved a sigh and shifted. “I suppose we’re done with the drawing?”

“I was planning to get back to it,” he replied, but Rey’s hand was already snaking down her body and he bit back a groan when she slid it under her thong and began to rub herself too.

Was he imaging the scent of her crossing the room to meet his nose? Was he imagining the wet sound of her folds? He wasn’t imagining her breathing, the pinkening of her cheeks, the way she was looking at his cock with hungry eyes.

God he wanted to fuck her, to press into her, to feel her hot and warm around him. He wanted to feel her heartbeat pulsing through her skin, wanted to kiss her, wanted to taste her, wanted to hold her and never let her go—not ever.

Instead, he let his eyes drift closed as he rolled his fingers over the tip of his dick, gripping it tighter towards the top and relaxing his grip when it approached the base again. With his other hand, he cupped his balls, played with them, pretended his fingers were Rey’s, though Rey’s would be more delicate than his. Her thumb was as wide as his pinky, after all.

He rubbed the ring against his dick and he heard her breath hitch. “Ben.” It was a whine of need. Was she begging for him? She could cross the room just as easily as he could. She could say that it was stupid, and they could just fuck and he wouldn’t have to take his collar off. 

He could just take his collar off.

Instead, he heard her coming, the familiar soft cry escaping her lips. He opened his eyes and saw that she had shoved the thong to the side and she was dripping all over the seat.  _ I’d clean you up if you’d let me _ . 

Hard to imagine that he’d only just learned how to give her head. He could spend his life with his lips between her legs, cleaning her, easing her, pleasing her…

When he came, his spunk flew across the living room floor, landing on her rug before it had really occurred to him that he should maybe at least try to aim for the hardwood. But his blood was roaring in his ears and he felt like he was flying again as Rey got up off the chair and found some tissues to wipe it clean as he sat there, totally boneless, his dick slowly getting softer.

“I’ll need to keep practicing,” he told her as she glanced at the art. “It’s been a while. I’m not as good as I once was.”

He didn’t expect her lips on his forehead, or her breath in his hair, but they were there as she murmured, “Well, we’ll let you practice, won’t we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have an attempt at self-harm (banging hand against a hard surface) midway through the chapter. Starts with "Or maybe just never thought about it that way before.
> 
> “Kylo?”" Including some additional ideation on the subject, it lasts a few lines (until Rey speaks again)
> 
> There's another instance briefly: "His mother’s attention felt choking, his father’s ambivalence was numbing, his uncle—" right after that, for a line or two.


	9. Chapter 9

Maybe if Rey were a better Domme, a more experienced one, she wouldn’t have let that happen. 

A firm, “Ben,” and he’d have tucked his dick away.  _ You can touch yourself whenever you want—as long as I’m not around _ . 

_ You can touch yourself whenever you want, as long as— _

_ As long as— _

God his dick was long.

But no. No, instead she’d fingered herself watching him jerk off. It wasn’t breaking the rules, she told herself. It was just bending them. A loophole. It wasn’t sex with one another, they were just masturbating.

Together.

While watching one another.

She was watching the way his cheeks went pink, hearing the way his breathing was growing ragged. She could smell his spunk in the air after he came and she was decently confident he could smell her too. 

She shouldn’t have let it happen.

And yet…

There had been something right about it. Something organic. Wasn’t this the whole reason she’d told him she didn’t want to have sex when he was wearing his collar? Because she didn’t want him to feel beholden? Because she wanted to be sure that if he was doing something, it was because he wanted to and not because she told him to? And him pulling his dick out and polishing off while drawing her in lingerie—that wasn’t him feeling beholden.

Part of her didn’t want to tell Ahsoka about it when Ahsoka called her on Monday to ask how the weekend had gone. She was still angry about Ahsoka’s radio silence, even if the other woman had apologized. She knew she’d fucked up. She didn’t need to have Ahsoka telling her that.

Except that Ahsoka didn’t. In fact, she barely reacted at all.

“Nice.”

“Nice?”

“Yeah. It sounds like good wholesome fun. Probably not something he ever did with Snoke.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m interfering with his therapy and not sticking to my own guidelines?”

“No,” Ahsoka said. “You did the one thing I was worried you wouldn’t do and sent him to therapy already, so even if I’m worried, I’m not freaking out with worry. You’re being as careful as you can be. If he wants to jerk it while drawing you, that sounds like it’s not terrible for him, and it’s definitely not bad for you. It makes me wonder if he’s getting the upper hand, but given that he’s in therapy and you’re relaxing a lot of your guidelines, that’s not really that much of a problem because when you do redefine your parameters, you’ll know what you’re about.”

Rey blinked at her. “You don’t think I’m being irresponsible?”

“I don’t know him well enough to know that, but I do know you, and you’ve been doing your best to be responsible, even if I have been stressed about it.”

“I feel like I’m being a bad Domme,” Rey whispered. It was a confession she hadn’t so much as whispered to the wind. It wasn’t a thought that she let herself have at all, because if she was a bad Domme, then that opened the door to a whole host of issues, not least of which was that he would leave.

Her gut twisted.

There it was again, the fear that he’d be gone. That she was getting too close. Too intimate. That it was moving away from her head and towards her heart, and her heart could bear many things, but it couldn’t bear being left behind again.

And if hearts got involved, he would leave. 

It scared her.

“Or you’re being a good one,” Rey could hear Ahsoka shrugging. “At some point, you have to trust yourself, Rey.”

“You’re really singing a different tune.”

“Maybe hearing about what he has been through has made it clear to me you won’t be the worst thing to happen to him. Maybe you’ll be the best. You always forget how warm and loving you are. Don’t forget to extend that to yourself too.”

“You’re not my therapist,” Rey muttered.

Ahsoka paused before the next question. “Have you talked to your therapist lately?” 

“Not since I moved,” Rey said. “I don’t know… I don’t think there’s anyone like Leia out there.”

“Find a therapist, Rey,” Ahsoka said sternly. “Or call Leia and see if she’ll talk with you remotely.”

Rey didn’t call Leia, but she did email her—a generally warm greeting and a request for referrals in the Crait area if she had any. Which was how she ended up sitting across a mint-walled room from a slender woman with violet hair a week later.

“So,” Amilyn said to her with a warm but contained smile, “What brings you in?”

Rey didn’t know where to start.

She felt out of practice—talking about herself, thinking about herself. 

“I,” she tried to start but no more words came out. Where did she even start, talking about Ben? “I’ve been… I…”

Amilyn waited patiently, her smile no less warm, no less contained. She was waiting, and would wait as long as she needed for Rey to say what she needed to say.

It reminded her of Ahsoka, during some of the more mind-play games they’d done.

“Do you know about BDSM?” she asked.

That caught Amilyn off-guard. “I do,” she replied. “I’ve had some clients that dabbled in it. Why?”

“I’m a Domme,” she said. “And my sub—he’s a mess. His previous Dom was horrible to him. Abusive.” She swallowed. She’d started. There was no going back now.

So she pressed on.

-

The drawing of Rey sat unfinished at the start of his pad of paper. Every time he went to sketch something all week, he stared at her legs. 

They weren’t bad, he decided. He could have done a lot worse, considering that he hadn’t drawn in years. But he would need to practice before he got to her face. He would need to do her face justice.

He practiced drawing things in his apartment. His unmade bed, the dishes piling up in the kitchen sink, the coat rack by the door. Muscles remembered what he was worried they wouldn’t. It didn’t look the way it once would have, but he still could do it.  _ Your body remembers things, Ben,  _ Qui-Gon had told him during their session early in the week.  _ The good and the bad. The mind can be fluid. Sometimes it’s very trustworthy, other times less so. But the body remembers.  _

That had been his explanation about why he’d vomited after Rey had approached him with a strap-on and asked him to kiss it. His body remembered Snoke, remembered the last time they’d seen one another before Snoke had thrown him from his life, remembered that it had been more pain than good. 

And his body rejected it.

_ Even if Snoke hadn’t said enough, it sounds like you were getting close,  _ Qui-Gon had said after that. 

_ Was I? _

Ben couldn’t remember. 

It all felt like a desperate fog. He’d felt like an addict denied, felt like a child berated, less than a man, less than human. Had he really been close to leaving?

“I don’t think I was,” he said aloud. He wished he was. He wished so desperately that he was. He wished he were brave enough to have done that, but Snoke had sapped the bravery out of him over the years.

He wished he were brave now. That he were brave enough to tell Rey and Qui-Gon both that it wasn’t  _ fair _ that he didn’t get to have sex with her while collared. That it felt like he wasn’t allowed to replace bad memories with good, that he couldn’t do what he wanted to do on his terms. 

_ Is she afraid of my terms? _

She hadn’t seemed to. She’d seemed keen on the idea of him touching himself in front of her at least.

But it wasn’t the same. 

He wanted to taste her, wanted to feel her around him, wanted to hold her when he came. He wanted her breath, hot and trembling against his skin, wanted her lips, wanted her.

_ She’s the one who thinks my submission is a gift or however it was she said it. Why can’t I give it? _

The question followed him all the way through the month, and into yoga at the start of the next, where he stared at her ass every time she was in Downward Dog, where he watched the sheen of sweat appear on her body and then grow brighter and brighter as they continued. He wanted to make her sweat. Wanted to lick her sweat off her.

This wasn’t, he reminded himself as Rey chatted with the instructor after the class, the longest he’d gone without sex. This wasn’t even the longest time he’d gone without orgasm, since Rey had given him permission to come whenever he wanted and he’d definitely taken advantage of that. But he still felt denied and constrained in a way that he didn’t want to.

_ Why don’t you take the collar off? Fuck her over your kitchen counter _ , he thought angrily for the twelfth or maybe hundredth time as she waved to the instructor and then came towards him. 

“Everything ok?” Rey asked as they stepped out into the night. 

“Fine,” he grunted. 

“You don’t look fine. Your face is an open book.”

“My mother used to say the same thing,” he grumbled. “Yeah, I’m feeling a little…” he tried to find the right word. “I just think it’s dumb we can’t fuck while I’m collared.”

“We’ve been over this,” Rey replied evenly, just as she had the last few times he’d tried broaching the subject.

“Yeah, and I don’t think it’s fair. I do actually think it’s you telling me what to do far more than anything else. You telling me how to be in charge of my own healing. Like—” He ran his hand through his hair. “Like we’re giving into the fact that I got triggered far more than if we tried to keep going. It feels like defeat rather than…” But his voice trailed away as he watched her. If his face was an open book, hers was too. And she looked a little crushed. 

_ She said she would always value your honesty, even if she didn’t like what she was hearing. _

But that didn’t mean he wanted to see her looking crushed.

His step faltered and she stopped, looking up at him in the lamplight. “That is understandable,” she said quietly. “I do understand that.” His heart leapt.

“So will you reconsider—”

“No.”

“No?” He didn’t like how angry he was getting, that she wasn’t even thinking about it at all.

She reached for his hand and took it. Her palm, so much smaller than his own, was warm in the late autumn chill. “Not for you,” she said. “For me. I—”

“I don’t  _ care _ if you trigger me again,” he pushed. “I don’t. I know it’s not you causing the pain.”

“That’s not how it works for me,” she said. “I don’t want to do that to you.”

“You’ll never be able to guarantee that I’m not triggered again, though.” She’d been to therapy before, had probably been in it longer than him. How come she didn’t get that? Qui-Gon had emphasized that a lot in the weeks that they’d been seeing one another. “How am I supposed to heal if I can’t do the things I want to do? Isn’t the whole point of this that I’m supposed to be doing the things I want?” He felt like a caged animal, determined to break free. He felt frustrated. Qui-Gon seemed all for him taking agency in his life—except when it came to doing the one thing he wanted to do. Didn’t he have agency if he  _ chose _ it? It didn’t make sense to him. The more time passed, the less it made sense to him. And, worse, it didn’t feel fair.

“I know,” Rey said quietly. “I do know that. It’s just—” She took a long, slow breath. She looked away from him, down the street. “I’m worried all the time that  _ I’m _ not equal to this. That I’m not good enough for it.”

“You’re wonderful,” he growled. “You’re—”

“You can say that,” she said. “And I can even do my best to believe it. But it takes a lot for me to overcome my instincts, even when they’re wrong. Usually when they’re wrong,” she corrected with a frown. “And I know it’s not ideal. But I need this space for me. I  _ can’t _ hold power over you right now—not when I’m afraid of what that means. Does that make sense? And I will get back to it, I’m sure. Time does wonders. But...” She looked lost. Confused. Small. He didn’t want her to look small.

Somehow, it felt like a relief to hear her say it again—that it wasn’t just about him. He had been wondering, after their first negotiation, if she’d really meant that, especially given how readily she’d touched herself when he’d first drawn her. But seeing her say it again now, seeing the truth gleaming through her eyes… that helped. He could sustain it much better, if it was also about her. Especially when he could see how upset she was by it. 

Suddenly, he felt a little like an ass for pressing the issue. “You’re good enough,” he told her quietly. He wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her. Was that allowed? 

He found he didn’t care.

_ If she were my mistress and not my Mistress, I would. _

She tucked so neatly under his chin. He loved the smell of her sweat, her shampoo, how warm she was in the chill of the night. “You’re enough.” 

She was trembling. Was she crying? He didn’t want to let go of her enough to check.

They were quiet the rest of the way to his place, and quiet while he cooked her dinner. It wasn’t the usual sort of quiet he experienced with her, a serene peacefulness. Her eyes did look a little bit red, her face was a little withdrawn.  _ Did I do this to her? _

The question burned at his throat.

How much torment had his being fucked up put her through? To make her question herself this much, to make her look lost, like she was grappling with her own darkness. Did she have a darkness? If hers was anything close to his, he…

“This is delicious.” Her voice was unexpected, jarring him out of his reverie. “You cook so well.”

“Thank you,” he said. 

“Was it something you learned when you were young?”  _ Did you have to learn for your Master?  _ How long would Snoke be a ghost between them? Qui-Gon said that time would help him fade to the background, but even now, he noted that Rey avoided mentioning him whenever she could even as she asked little questions that danced around him. It somehow made his presence louder.

“No, I learned when I was in high school,” he said. “My mom insisted that I be able to sustain myself because she had evening clients sometimes and my dad’s work often took him out of town. She also thought that doing stuff with my hands would get me out of my head.” He rolled his eyes. “You know what moms are like.”

It was the warmest thought he’d had about his mother in years—that she had taken the time to make sure he could feed himself properly, that he wasn’t completely helpless the way so many men he knew were.  _ Cooking is a life skill, not a gendered activity,  _ she had told him.

_ Dad doesn’t cook. _

_ Your dad can’t fix his car, either, or handle his finances. He should know how to do all of it. _

His mother wasn’t the best cook, but she wasn’t bad, and it was the one area of life she didn’t feel controlling in. She let him experiment with spices, with fats, with grain and milk substitutes, and didn’t bat an eyelash. She didn’t cook with him, so she wasn’t laced into his experience in kitchens but she did open the door for him. He wondered if things would have been different—if she’d opened more doors for him, rather than trying to usher him through.

Rey was quiet for a long time, and he watched as her eyes got brighter, and brighter. It wasn’t the good kind of bright, the happy bright, the pleased bright. It was a storm, one that set Ben’s teeth on edge, threatening panic with every passing second until a tear dropped on her plate.

“What is it?” he croaked. “What did I—”

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Really.”

“It’s not nothing,” he growled. “Would you let me start crying and not ask me why?”

She looked up at him. There wasn’t fear in her face. 

There was despair.

“I don’t, actually,” she said. He frowned. That wasn’t an answer to his question. She continued. “I don’t actually know what moms are like. My parents abandoned me when I was five and I spent most of my life in the foster system.”

It was like all the air went out of the room, but Ben tried to breathe anyway, even if his mouth went dry. 

He hadn’t known.

He wouldn’t have known unless she told him.

It wasn’t his place to know, to ask, to get to know. He knew nothing about Snoke’s life outside of their play because Snoke had decided what Kylo knew about him. Rey would be the same. Any Dom would be.

“I’m sorry.” He reached for her hand, he squeezed it. 

She took a long shuddering breath. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

“I’m just raw because I started seeing a therapist again last month, and everything’s rawer after that.” She gave him a watery smile. “My mentor, my former Domme, she suggested I go back around the time you started going. I think she would have no matter what once I had a submissive,” she added. “She was the one who sent me to therapy the first time, too, though that was before I subbed for her.”

“You subbed?”

Ben frowned. He felt like he knew that and had forgotten. Or maybe he had just guessed. It might explain how easy she was to yield freedom to him—if she was used to submitting.

Rey nodded. “The best way to learn how to be a Domme is to sub for a while. Otherwise you never really know what you’re asking of people.”

“I wonder if Snoke ever subbed,” he bit out.

“If he did, his Dom was likely also terrible,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Ahsoka—my mentor—she spoke with someone who used to run in a community with Snoke. She said he was run out because he didn’t have good safeword etiquette with his sub, and the sub let it slip to other subs, and they all went to their Doms. That wasn’t you, was it?”

Ben blinked. “No,” he said. “No, I never really had—I didn’t…” He ran his hand through his hair. “He didn’t let me talk to other subs.”

“That might be why,” Rey said quietly. She shifted in her seat, leaning towards him. “Would you like it if I tried to find some subs for you to talk to? You said you wanted to make friends.” She paused and a flush rose in her cheeks, as though she were worried he would be angry that she remembered, that she cared. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think I would like that.” He paused. “It might be hard, though. Doms in the area—they all know Snoke, and none of them would begin to take me on because they didn’t want to cross him.”

“I can keep you out of it,” Rey said. “But if there are any you’d like me to avoid, I will.”

He frowned. “Like, names of Doms?”

“Yes. I don’t need them right away. Take some time and—”

“Phasma,” he said at once. “Pryde.” There were others, but those two—they ran so close to Snoke.

“Noted,” Rey said. “Let me know more as you can. I’ll start reaching out next week.”

Ben swallowed. He was still holding her hand. He didn’t want to let it go. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“It’s what I’m supposed to do,” she pointed out.

“Not like this,” he replied.

“Your every need,” she corrected. “That’s what we agreed to. This is a need. It won’t be the only way you make friends, but it can be a start.”

He paused. 

He was sure that Rey had carefully steered the conversation away from her tears, away from her parents, away from her pain. He was sure that she was trying not to think about it, that she didn’t want him to worry about it, or her. But she’d cried in his kitchen eating his food, and she herself had shown him what thoughtful support looked like when cracks were showing. “I don’t know if I can say you’re better off without your parents,” she stiffened, her hand tightening in his, “but something tells me you were if they would abandon you when you were that young. And any sense of inadequacy,” he paused, “any worry or doubt you have that you’re not good enough, that you’re not… I don’t know. You are. You just are, ok?”

Her eyes brightened again, but not in a way that made him nervous, not with the way she was looking at him, as though relief were washing over her, easing her pain.

_ You take care of me, but maybe sometimes I can take care of you. _

“You’re not alone.” Would she remember that she’d said that to him that night in the bathroom?

He couldn’t tell if she did. “Neither are you,” she whispered back.

He wondered if he would ever let her hand go.

Even if he did, he wouldn’t let  _ her _ go. 

-

Finn knocked on her door on Thursday. “Beer?”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Yeah, but you see boytoy on Fridays. Don’t tell me I’m not observant.”

Rey blinked at him. She’d been feeling a little listless most of the day. She could still feel Ben’s hand on hers. 

She didn’t know how to tell him he was one of the only people she’d ever told about her parents. She didn’t know how to tell him just how much it meant for him to say that they were wrong, that she was better off without them. She knew it was true, but sometimes she needed to hear it. That child’s voice in her mind was stronger than she knew, creeping into everything that she  _ wasn’t _ . She hadn’t gone to good schools, she was lower down in the pecking order for her job than anyone else her age, she had never had a real relationship, just checklists and sex. 

And Ben had held her hand for the better part of an hour the night before, had looked so deep into her eyes that she wondered if he could, in fact, see her soul.

It was terrifying. 

It was thrilling.

And now Finn wanted her to get beer.

“Give me ten?” 

He grinned at her and disappeared.

She was composing an email to a Domme she’d met for coffee when she’d first moved to Crait. Rose Tico had been warm, and supportive, and had told her she and her sub—a bit of a brat—were more than happy to share scenes if that was interesting to Rey while she got settled. Rey had been tempted, but had politely declined, worried that polyplay would make her feel worse rather than better while she was on her own.  _ Inadequacy?  _ she wondered yet again. 

From Rose’s vibe, she had the sense that the other Domme didn’t know Snoke. She was new to the area too. Ahsoka had put them in touch. 

The email was careful, not giving too much away beyond that her new sub was interested in networking and how would Poe feel about getting coffee with him sometime.

She sighed, hit send, and then grabbed her jacket and made her way to the elevator where Finn was waiting.

“Things going ok?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she said. “This guy I’m sort of seeing,” her gut twisted, “we had a rough patch but I think we’re pushing through.”

Finn frowned. “What kind of rough patch.”

Rey swallowed.  _ I triggered him and we completely shook up the parameters of the typical BDSM relationship and now he holds my hand and says things that make my heart squirm. _

“I think just… new relationship jitters.”

“Does it feel like a relationship?” Finn asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Is that so surprising?” She tried not to let the way her breath caught in her throat appear in her voice. She tried not to think about way that her heart lurched or the way her mouth went dry might be in anyway perceptible to Finn.

“No,” he said at once, inhaling as he did and making his voice a little more high pitched than usual. “Not at all. Just you never talk about your dating life. Ever. So it’s surprising that you are. ”

Rey sighed, and hoped Amilyn would be proud of her, forging into frightening territory like this. Because if she was talking about Ben at all, that meant admitting to the world that she and Ben—that they might—that— Before, Ben wasn’t boyfriend material, he wasn’t someone she was hoping to be with or marry and that was what Finn would expect. Now, though...

Well, now it felt more like what a relationship should be and less what she and Ben had both signed up for. Last night, she’d found herself wondering what would happen if she’d stayed the night at his place. Would she have given in and they’d have sex while he still wore her collar? She didn’t know what comforting sex was, but she’d sort of wanted it last night. He’d made her a good dinner, she’d cried, he’d held her hand. Sex could have followed. 

_ Don’t. Don’t don’t don’t,  _ she cut herself off _.  _ It had felt so wonderful, and sweet, and the more she thought about it, the more terrified of it she was. She didn’t know how to protect her heart from it. 

Suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. She knew that Doms and subs could be in romantic relationships with one another, but that had never been something she’d thought about at all. That kind of emotional entanglement—she’d never really wanted it, no matter how much Leia and now Amilyn had pressed her about vulnerability and intimacy with others. She could tell that they wanted her to feel emotionally open with the people she was engaging with. 

But how much she wanted to be vulnerable with Ben frightened her. 

He wasn’t in a place for that now. He needed to focus on himself—not her problems. 

Finn was watching her and she realized she’d been quiet for too long. “I just…” she began, but had no idea where she was going. “I just…”

“You like him,” Finn said simply. 

“Yeah. God, I need a drink.”

Finn chuckled. Hopefully that’d be enough to keep him off her back. 

As they stepped out of the elevator, her phone buzzed and she saw that Rose’s reply had already come through.

_ Rey! Good to hear from you. Absolutely—happy to connect Poe with your sub. Be warned: I’ve been told his influence makes subs brattier.  _ Rey smiled. She liked bratty Ben. 

Rey replied at once, ( _ Please! And thank you! _ ) before turning back to Finn. He was watching her, his gaze both steady and supportive. 

He gripped her shoulder. “You’ll do fine,” he said. “He’s lucky to have you.”

Ben had said as much the night before. It meant more than she knew how to say that Finn was saying it too, even without knowing anything about Ben, or what he’d been going through.  _ Ahsoka said it too. _

_ Believe them, Rey. Why don’t you believe them? _

She needed a drink. 

And maybe afterwards, she would call Ben, just to hear the sound of his voice.

-

Ben woke on Saturday morning with a crick in his neck and an erection pressed to Rey’s ass. Somewhere in the night, they’d shifted so that he was cocooned around her, holding her to his chest. 

He was torn. He did not want to move at all. Her ass pressed against his erection was just about everything he’d dreamed of for the past week, the sort of fodder for his shower-masturbations that he’d treasure for a long time. But his neck hurt. A lot, actually. Whenever it was they’d shifted to this in their sleep, he had left his pillow behind. It twinged when he shifted to see if he could angle the pillow under his head. 

_ You’re getting old _ , he groused at himself. 

Rey shifted in her sleep, her ass rubbing against him deliciously and he closed his eyes. He could deal with his neck if she just kept doing that. His whole body would be warm and melty soon if she just kept doing that.

She didn’t, though. She pulled away from him, glancing over her shoulder to see if he was awake. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“Don’t be,” he replied, rolling onto his back. His dick jutted out underneath the blankets, defiant in its determined arousal even though Rey had pulled away. Now it was annoying him more than his neck, which was a little happier now that it wasn’t crunched on his side.

“Do you need a minute before breakfast?” Rey asked. He wished she’d at least keep the amusement out of her voice.

“Nah. Ow—” Because when he sat up, his neck gave its worst twinge yet. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Slept funny on my neck,” he said, reaching up a hand and rubbing it. Good God, he was getting old.

He heard Rey rummaging around behind him, then felt her fingers moving his aside and felt something cool and smooth pressing against his neck. Then it began to buzz.

He turned his head, trying to see, and flinched at the movement. “Is that a vibrator?”

“This thing was originally branded as a personal massager. I’ve used it on my neck sometimes,” she said. “Is this the right spot?”

“A little lower.” 

That was better. His eyes drifted shut as Rey’s vibrator worked at the muscle, the hand not holding the vibrator resting on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and just breathed.

_ It feels so fucking domestic. _

_ My mistress, my Mistress. _

It wasn’t long before he felt too relaxed to feel particularly aroused anymore. The ache in his muscle was subsiding too.

Eventually, he stirred, and Rey shut off the vibrator. “Better?”

“Much.”

He cooked her a simple breakfast, which they ate together quietly. They went on a walk, and his breath caught in his throat when she slipped her hand in his and held it. She didn’t look at him as she did it, didn’t look at him after. Was she flushing, or was that just the cold he saw in her cheeks? 

To everyone they passed, they looked like a couple. A boyfriend and a girlfriend walking down the street, holding hands after a night spent together. They might even look married. 

Only a few weeks ago, Ben might have balked at that. Or rather, Kylo would have balked at it. He wanted to serve, not to have someone massage his neck with a vibrator and then hold his hand while they went on a walk. But as he looked around Ben found he wanted them to think that. He wanted strangers to look at him and Rey and think,  _ good looking couple. They seem to fit one another. _

Because they did seem to fit one another. She was taking care of him and he—he was taking care of her. 

He’d spent a lot of time the night before telling Qui-Gon how good it felt to feel like he could be there for Rey. Qui-Gon’s eyes had gleamed at that.  _ Why?  _ He had asked and hadn’t let go until Ben had confessed that it made him feel in control of something. Not of Rey, but of himself. He could take care of someone, he could make someone’s experience a little better. He wasn’t worthless. Indeed, he had a very specific tangible worth and that made him feel…

More like himself than he had in years. Maybe since he was a boy.

_ Remember that,  _ Qui-Gon had told him.  _ Remember that whenever you think you hear Snoke’s voice in your mind. You’re worth something very important, no matter how worthless you feel echoed in his voice. Let it be a guiding light for you that will help you through the anxiety. _

Rey seemed steadier today than she had earlier in the week. She seemed determined not to even acknowledge what she’d told him about her parents, that she’d cried in his arms. But her hand was in his now, and he knew that even if she wasn’t talking about it, that didn’t mean she wasn’t reckoning with it.  _ There’s no going back _ , he thought as he looked at her. And if she was holding his hand, maybe she didn’t want to be going back. 

But he couldn’t stop himself poking anyway.

“You feeling better?”

“What?” Rey sounded breathless as she looked up at him, her hazel eyes bright. Her expression was confused, but when she looked at him, the confusion melted away. “Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

“Good,” he said and he squeezed her hand.  _ You’re still holding my hand, the way we held hands the other night. _

She squeezed it back.  _ I am. It meant something to me too. _

He felt like he could walk on air. Wildly, he wondered what would happen if he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. A few weeks before, he would never have dared without permission. Anything he wanted, it was granted to him, not something he could take for himself. He was a submissive, not a Dominant.

_ The best way to learn how to be a Domme is to sub for a while. Otherwise you never really know what you’re asking of people. _

Viscerally, he imagined her on her knees in front of him, looking up at him. She was looking at him the way he wanted to look at her, hopeful and giving and wanting and waiting. Trusting. She knew he’d give her what she wanted in the end. She believed in him…

_ I’m not a Dominant _ , he thought, frowning. But the image didn’t leave his mind that easily. Years and years and years of Snoke telling him that all he was good for was submission…

He frowned.

“What is it?” Rey asked.

“His voice… I didn’t hear it.”

“What?” Rey was frowning now, too.

“Sometimes when I have thoughts, I hear them in his voice. But the one I just had—it wasn’t…”

“That’s good, though, isn’t it?”  _ Hopeful and giving and wanting and waiting. _

He stared at her as though he’d been struck by lightning. 

She’d given him control a few times. He’d known that it wasn’t true control, that it was permission, not submission, but she’d done it and he’d liked it. He ran his free hand through his hair and looked away. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s good.”

He hadn’t been this confused in years. He didn’t like it. What he  _ liked _ about these arrangements was that the ambiguity was gone. He knew his place, he knew what was expected of him. He didn’t have to second guess his prime directive: that he was to serve his Mistress. 

But thinking of her serving him, her repeated assertion that they could have sex if he took his ring off so she knew it wasn’t coerced—these were shades of grey he didn’t like.

And yet he was thrilled by them.

As thrilled as he was to hold her hand. 

-

Ben spread her legs when he set her up in her pose this time. She was naked, this time. When she’d raised an eyebrow to tease, he’d said simply, “It’s easier to draw your skin than your underwear. You’ve got very detailed underwear.”

“You don’t need to draw all the details.”

But he’d given her a cheeky smile that had made her stomach do about six somersaults and so there she was on her couch, her leg thrown over the top, her hand inches from her cunt and she knew the way he was going to draw her, she’d either look like she was about to masturbate or like she just had.

It didn’t really surprise her that Ben’s dick was in his hands in less than ten minutes. What did surprise her was that he kept drawing this time. He wasn’t feverishly stroking himself, it was lazy almost. Or rather, she’d think it was lazy if she didn’t see the way his cheeks were coloring up, the way his lips were getting dry from all the times he licked them. He stared at her cunt, her breasts, her lips, his dick throbbing and purple against his palm.

Her fingers inched towards her cunt.

“No,” he said.

“No?”

“I’m working on that arm now.”

“Ben,” she whined.

“In a few minutes.”

Was she imagining it, or was there a curl of enjoyment in his lips, that he was making her wait? That he was the one giving the commands. 

She glared at him and used her other hand to play with her nipple. Since he was working on the other arm. 

She saw his hand stop its ministrations for just a breath. When it started again, it was faster. She smirked. “Like what you see?”

“Always,” he replied without missing a beat. Something in the way he said it made her mouth go dry.  _ You’re not alone. _

Her breathing trembled for a moment, her throat locked, her eyes went bright. Oh for fuck’s sake, she wasn’t going to cry over this. She felt like she’d been crying all week. Therapy broke down every wall she built around her well of tears. 

She didn’t cry, thank God. Ben came before he was done with the picture, which didn’t surprise her too much, but this time he kept drawing. He kept staring at her and his hand kept going with its pencil and Rey didn’t know how long it was before he said, “You can if you like.”

She’d forgotten she wanted to masturbate. She wasn’t quite in the mood for it now, but she didn’t want to let that on so she stroked herself and stared at him, wondering if he knew what she was thinking, if he felt what she was feeling, if he felt that way too.

He got up before she came, crossing the room and holding out the pad of paper. 

The drawing was—

Well it was beautiful. She looked beautiful, and vulnerable, and hot, and all these other things too. The lines were a little sketchy, but somehow that made it better. It made it feel frenzied, though she knew it hadn’t been. It made it feel needy, which she sensed it had been. 

“It’s lovely,” she told him.

“You’re lovely,” he said.

Those were the words that she came to. She wondered if it was her body reacting to the word, because that was what Ahsoka had called her during scenes. She wondered if her body was reacting to the warmth in his eyes, the intensity of his voice.

She imagined it might have been a bit of all of it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas to those who celebrate! 
> 
> Thank you, once again, for all your amazingly kind reviews. I've loved seeing where you think this story is going to go!   
> Hopefully some of it will start consolidating a little more with this chapter. 
> 
> There'll be two more updates after this one, and I plan to wrap up before the end of the year.

Ben got to the coffee shop thirty minutes early and sat there staring at his espresso for a long time.  _ Poe’s been Rose’s sub for about two years,  _ Rey had told him.  _ And has been in the Crait scene for about five.  _

The name didn’t ring a bell, which Ben took as a good sign. If it had rung a bell, he’d have pulled the plug. 

His heart was beating hard in his chest. It hadn’t beat like this in a long while.

Not since he’d started serving his Mistress. Not since he’d been sitting there on tenterhooks, worrying about whether or not she’d like him. In the past few months, he’d grown confident in her caring, confident in her want, and that had settled him more than he had realized. All his other stresses came from himself, his memories, his pain, his fear.

And now he was afraid of meeting someone new. And not knowing what to do, or say.

“Ben?”

He almost jumped out of his chair. The man standing next to him was average height, with waving dark hair that was beginning to dust with silver. He pulled out the seat in front of Ben and gave him a winning grin. “How’s it going?”

“All right,” Ben said tightly. He took a sip of his espresso. It had gotten cold. He shouldn’t have come this early. “You?”

“Oh, you know,” Poe shrugged. “Had the shit pegged out of me over the weekend.” He gave Ben a wink and Ben couldn’t tell if it was literal or a joke. He decided to believe it was a joke. “You new in town?”

“No,” Ben said, and Poe’s hand paused midway to lifting his coffee to his lips. “No, I’ve been here for years. Came to town for college.”

“No shit,” Poe said, finally drinking his coffee. “Is this your first time in the scene, then? New to everything?”

Ben felt too warm and too cold all at once. He tried to imagine Rey sitting at his side, holding his hand.  _ It’s ok. It’ll be ok. _

“No,” he said. “But my previous… my… my former Dom didn’t treat me well, so Rey thought it would be good for me to…” He felt pathetic. He felt useless.  _ My Domme made a playdate for me.  _ What kind of child was he?

He looked down at his cold espresso. 

“Your Dom ran in Snoke’s circle?” 

Ben’s head shot up at the darkness in Poe’s voice, the way he almost growled the words out. It was the first time he’d thought about it—that Snoke might be infamous, and not in a good way. Rey’s disgust in what little she knew of him always seemed personal, but now that he was thinking on it, she couldn’t possibly be the only one who felt that way when she learned about his tactics.

“You could say,” Ben said quietly.

Poe’s eyes went wide. “Are you the one he dumped last year?” He let out a low whistle. “You are. Shit—everyone assumed you’d left Crait completely. You stuck around?”

His heart sank. “Everyone?” 

“Well, everyone in our circle. No one really knew you, just knew of what happened. Snoke never told anyone your name, so it was hard to look you up.”

“I’ve been applying for Doms for the past year,” Ben said, bewildered. He’d spent months facing rejection after rejection, and now to learn that people had wanted to help him?

“Huh.” A frown creased Poe’s face. “Weird. People said you must have left the scene completely. And who’d blame you after Snoke?” He shook himself. “You’ve lucked out with Rey, though. She’s nice. Is she a good Domme?”

Ben nodded. “She’s been good to me,” he said quietly. “Too good to me.”

“Nah,” Poe said leaning back in his chair. “No such thing.”

Ben swallowed. “I’m gonna get another,” he said, pointing to his coffee. “You want anything?”

“I’m set for now,” Poe said.

He got to his feet and got back in line to give the barista his order. Idly, he checked his phone, where he found a message from Rey.

_ You’re doing great. _

He smiled. 

He liked that she had that faith in him. 

_ I could be doing worse,  _ he thought as he glanced back over his shoulder at Poe, who was staring at his phone and typing on it. Probably telling everyone he knew that he’d stumbled upon Snoke’s former sub.

He thought he’d feel shame, that everyone seemed to have seen what was happening to him but somehow he hadn’t. Of course it made sense that his Master would have made his own subscene where he could make his own rules, but that there would be other Doms, like Rey, who would reject those rules. That made sense. 

He wondered if he had it in him to actually look people in the eye, knowing they knew about what he’d gone through. Would it be the worst thing in the world? Letting people welcome him? They didn’t have to know the full extent of it—the panic, the fear, the paranoia. They could just know that he was with Rey now, and that Rey was doing everything for him that he could want.

Except the one thing.

_ But that’s because of her, not because of me. _

_ And we will get back to it. I can wait, if it’ll make her happy. If it’ll make her feel safe in her own head. _

_ In her own heart. _

He got back to the table to find Poe still typing.

“Sorry,” Poe said. “Just a second.”

“How many people are gossiping about me?” Ben asked blithely, taking a sip of his coffee. It was warm this time. Much better.

“Pretty much everyone I know,” Poe replied. At least he had the decency not to lie. “Hey, how would you feel about coming to a play party we have in a few weeks. Have you ever been to one not run by Snoke?”

Ben took another sip of coffee he didn’t need, just to calm his nerves. The words  _ play party _ elicited a strong reaction—stronger than he’d expected. He had, of course, gone to play parties with Snoke. He’d always enjoy the exhibitionism of them, let that distract him from the increasing discomfort he now recognized he felt over the years. He tried to imagine himself sitting, collared, at his Mistress’ feet, his eyes downcast so he could only see her shoes, maybe the shoes of people she was talking to, her hand trailing along his neck just because it could sometimes. 

He almost couldn’t form words. Poe had asked him a question, but he was too lost in thinking about how that would feel—how  _ good _ it would feel.

Poe cleared his throat.

“No,” Ben said at once. “No, I haven’t.”

“I’ll text you details. If it’s something you and Rey are into, we’d love to have you, I’m sure.”

“I’ll bring it up to her,” Ben replied. He saw the slight twitch to Poe’s lips, the quiet,  _ I see what you’re thinking _ . It was kinship. It was someone who knew what it was to sub, who enjoyed their own Domme, appreciating the feeling that he saw in Ben’s face.

It made Ben want to sit up straighter. It made him want to compare notes. But he didn’t know what notes to compare. Not while he and Rey were the way they were.

But he felt more… excited. Alive, maybe. More something than he’d felt in months thinking about all of this. This as an activity, rather than this as a relationship with Rey.

_ Qui-Gon’s going to lose his shit,  _ Ben thought.

But he took a sip of his coffee, and found he didn’t care.

-

Qui-Gon didn’t lose his shit. Not exactly.

But he didn’t go down without a fight.

“What makes this so appealing to you?” Qui-Gon asked. “So appealing that you want to throw caution to the wind and readjust your relationship parameters again and risk all the progress you’ve made thus far?”

“Because I think it would be good for me,” he said. “I think it would help both of us get over our anxiety. Just being around other people and revisiting what—”

“During our last session, you were talking about how comforting it was that yours was growing into a more domestic relationship.”

“Yeah, but I also said that I wasn’t fully satisfied. That I wanted to have sex with her and we weren’t doing that and I could be patient but I wasn’t fully satisfied.”

“And you think this is an avenue to sex?” Qui-Gon did not sound impressed.

Ben glared at him. This calm, unflappable man had a way of getting under his skin like no one else. It made him angry, sometimes. Something that had made Qui-Gon laugh when he’d told him the first time.  _ Anger can be productive. Use it. Being angry with me might help you push through your fear better, because you’re not actually angry with me. You’re angry at Snoke, or your mother, or yourself, but not with me. _

“Even if we end up in some kind of relationship, I want to do things like this with her,” Ben told him. “It’s about doing it  _ with her _ that makes it appealing. That it will be so different from doing it with Snoke.”

“And what will you do if she says no?” Qui-Gon asked. “Because she may. You said that she didn’t want to have sex right now in part because of her own therapy. What if she deems it too much?”

Ben was prepared for that question. He’d been prepared for it from the moment Poe brought it up to him because his mind had been spinning on it endlessly. 

“I don’t want to have sex with her at the party,” Ben said. “I don’t want to do anything exhibitionist. I just want to  _ go _ . She’s not Snoke and I’m tired of being so afraid of Snoke that I don’t get to do what I want to do. That makes it feel like he’s still got his fingers in my brain.” 

Qui-Gon inclined his head, his face unreadable, so Ben pressed on. 

“If we go, we can show ourselves what we can be. We can put a toe in the water. Because if I do want to have a long-term relationship with her, this isn’t off the table. Not when I’ve seen how good it can be with her. So much better than anything I knew.”

To his surprise, Qui-Gon smiled. 

“What?” Ben growled.

“I’m hearing you talk about a long-term relationship with her. I’m hearing you talk about compromising in the face of asks and boundaries. I’m seeing you assert your own wants and needs, and being able to identify which is which, and being able to recognize which is which for her as well. I’m seeing you fight for yourself.”

Ben stared at him. 

He didn’t like how it felt oddly deflating to hear him say that.

Qui-Gon caught it. “Why the face?” he asked.

“I don’t want to feel like she’s my adversary in anything.”

“Why do you feel like she’s your adversary? Because she isn’t giving you what you want?”

Ben swallowed. He didn’t want to say it.

He didn’t have to. “She’s not Snoke,” Qui-Gon said. “You just said that, so you know it down in your core. This is an echo. You never had Snoke’s reasons for what he wanted, beyond his own narcissism. You have her reasons. Do you think she’s going to withhold something from you without reason, just because you want it?”

That’s how it felt.

That’s exactly how it felt.

He put his head in his hands.

“No,” he said glumly. “No, she won’t.”

“So then why do you worry about feeling as though she’s your adversary?”

Ben didn’t reply. His mind wasn’t on this train of thought anymore. It was on Rey, shaking as she cried in his arms. All the little hints that she wasn’t equal to his needs—but not just that. To  _ any _ sub’s needs. 

“I’m breaking her,” he whispered, his voice dry.

“You’re not breaking her,” Qui-Gon cut in at once. 

“I am. She’s afraid of everything. Of what she’ll do to me. And it’s breaking her.”

“I doubt that,” Qui-Gon said gently. “I think it’s far more likely that she doesn’t trust herself, and that’s coming out far more in the current circumstance.”

Panic pulsed through him. “So I have to make her trust herself.” He couldn’t break Rey. He couldn’t. 

“And so you’re offering up your body, and your submission, to help her trust herself?” Qui-Gon’s voice was dry, his eyebrows raised.

“I’m asking you what other options you think are out there?” Ben replied and Qui-Gon inclined his head. “I only know the one, but I don’t think it’ll solve the problem, even if I think it can be a part of the solution.”

“Of course, I apologize.”

It calmed him down, watching Qui-Gon admit that he’d misinterpreted Ben’s question. 

Qui-Gon thought for a long moment before speaking. “You two are in such an odd scenario, aren’t you.”

Ben snorted. “That’s a way to put it.”

“You’re invested in one another in a way that I rarely see in couples who’ve been together in as short a timeframe as you’ve been. Ordinarily, my advice would be to talk about it, but you both have spent the time since you initiated your relationship talking about little else.” He shifted in his seat and closed his notebook. “I wonder if it’s merely a matter of how you frame the question. Asking her how she’s feeling and doing. What she’s thinking. Offering this as a way to demonstrate to her that she can do this, because if you can do it, she can. Center the conversation around her rather than around you.”

“She’ll make it about me, though,” Ben said. “It’s how she pivots away from talking about herself.”

“Then point that out to her,” Qui-Gon said. “Challenge her. If this is a relationship of equals, then she has to give to you what she asks you to give to her. Isn’t that what all this is about? The promise that you’ll follow through for one another, each to your role? Because it’s not fair to you if she does that. Of course,” he added quickly, watching Ben bristle at the slight against Rey, “intention matters. I don’t think she intends it to be this way, but you both define the parameters of your relationship. You’re allowed to ask for a change in behavior on her part. If you were realizing you had a new limit on your checklist, would she ask you to tell her?”

“Yes,” Ben said at once. “She wants my honesty, she has proven that she cares about it.”

“So give her your honesty now. Let her see herself the way you see her. It may help her heal as well. One of the great challenges is sometimes we only see ourselves reflected in the mirror, but that won’t always be how others see us.”

Ben thought of the way he drew her, the way her body looked when he traced shadows and light across her skin. She’d never see herself like that, except through his drawings.

He got it.

He knew what he had to do, and hoped he’d have the strength to do it.

-

“Do you want to go to a play party?”

The question was asked so casually that Rey almost choked on the focaccia Ben made her that week. He was watching her carefully, and there was an odd intensity to his gaze, one that she didn’t think she’d seen there before. 

“A play party?” 

“Yes. Poe invited us to one while we were at coffee this week. I thought it might be an interesting thing to try.” There was a purposeful neutrality in his voice. Like he was trying not to give anything away. 

Rey frowned, tearing the focaccia between her fingers. “Why are you asking? If we aren’t even having sex, why do you think this is something I’d—”

“Because play parties aren’t just about sex,” he said. “Because we wouldn’t have to be having sex to go. Because it might be worthwhile to see if we could. To see if  _ you _ could.”

That struck a nerve. “What’s that supposed to mean—to see if  _ I _ could,” she snapped. 

“You’re the one who says you’re not ready. It felt like a safe environment in which to—”

“To see if you can handle being in that mind-frame again?” she retorted. “To see if you can—”

“I’m not talking about me.” He said it quietly. “I’ve already discussed it with Qui-Gon. I wouldn’t have brought it up at all if he’d had strong qualms. He has some, but also thinks if we’re careful it could help. I’m bringing it up to you because you value my honesty, and I don’t see why it’s not something we can discuss.”

She stared at him. He said it so carefully that she was sure he’d practiced it a thousand times. Had he been afraid of how she’d react? Was she reacting badly now? Should she be handling this better? She’d gotten angry and defensive so quickly without considering it at all. Had he anticipated that?

This was different from his usual complaints about their not having sex. This felt—

It felt like she wasn’t enough. Like she, as his Mistress—she should have thought of this as a limit to try. She should have kept up with his therapy enough to know that he was feeling ready for this. If his therapist thought it was potentially safe for him to do, why didn’t she?

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Talk to me.”

She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know what to say.”

“About what?” Ben asked. “About the party?”

“Why do you feel safe going to one?” she asked. If she just understood better why he thought this was a step that he could take then—

“We’re talking about you, not me,” he said carefully. Again with that carefully. Like he had been expecting it. He had to have been, because the next thing out of his mouth was, “You like to try and distract me from when you’re having trouble by pivoting to me. You shouldn’t do that. It’s not fair.”

“How is it not fair if I’m trying to make sure that—”

“How can you expect me to be honest with you if you refuse to be honest with yourself?”

His words were forceful, almost like a slap in the face. Rey recoiled slightly.

“I am honest with myself,” she snapped. “I’m plenty self-aware, thank you.”

He leaned back in his chair, his gaze piercing right through her as though she were naked, and tied up, and the only thing that mattered in the world to him was what she was feeling, what she was thinking. “You’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” she retorted.

“You are,” he said. “And that’s fine. I’m not easy to be with, and I know that.” Her breath caught in her throat. “But you can’t make yourself smaller because of that.”

“I’m not making myself smaller,” she replied automatically.

“If I were any other sub, would you accept my request to go to a play party?” 

Rey hesitated. 

_ With any other sub, I wouldn’t be terrified the way I am with you.  _ Of that she was sure. No other sub could be like Ben. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“So I don’t see why you don’t accept it now, if we’re careful about pre-negotiating what we want the experience to be like. I want to see what the larger scene was like—the part of it that was always out of Snoke’s sphere. I want to see what I could have had this whole time, I want to see that I  _ can _ have something kinky and interesting and unlike what I went through. And we could try to see how the old roles fit now.”

Rey swallowed. The boundaries would probably be helpful. They’d probably be good for her. She’d been worried about them more and more as he’d been drawing her, as he’d been touching himself, and she’d been touching herself, and wondering who was in control. Did it fit them anymore?

What if it didn’t? 

What if it had gone too far away from the path of strict structure that there was no return? What would that mean for them then?

Because she didn’t want to let him go. She didn’t want to lose him.

_ But will you lose him if you say no? _

No. She wouldn’t.

She would lose him if she wasn’t vulnerable.

The thought was a knife in her heart. That was what he wanted from her. He’d said as much just now, and she’d been too afraid to listen.

She put her head in her hands, shaking. “I’m sorry,” she moaned. “I’m so sorry.”

Rey got up from the table and went into the hallway, unsure if she wanted to go into the bathroom to wash her face or her bedroom so she could cry in peace.

She should have known that Ben wouldn’t let her just leave like that.

He was behind her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her back to his chest and pressing his lips to her neck. “What’s wrong?” he whispered. “Please tell me. Please.”

“I keep messing up,” she choked out. “I keep trying to get it right and then keep messing up. And I don’t want to mess up.”

He ran his nose along her neck, up and down. He just held her while she cried— _ again _ . Wasn’t she supposed to be the one who comforted him, not the other way around?

“You don’t have to be perfect,” he told her firmly. “This isn’t about perfection. If it were, why would there be checklists? They aren’t promises. They’re guidelines, and ones you can renegotiate.” Vaguely, she was aware of how confident he sounded as he said it. When had that happened? He’d always been so nervous, and Snoke hadn’t exactly emphasized this with him.  _ Did it come from me? _ “We  _ did _ renegotiate. So we’ll keep doing it. If it’s too much for you, fine. But I don’t think it is. I think you think it’s too much for me, but are afraid of what it will mean if it’s not.”

“What am I afraid of?” Rey whispered. Her brain felt sluggish, heavy. She felt bone-weary. And so far tonight he—more than she—had demonstrated awareness of what was actually happening in her heart.

“The same thing I am,” he whispered. “That we’ll hurt each other too much to know what to do next. So we end up hurting ourselves to try and stop that from happening—and for  _ what _ ?”

“Was I making you hurt yourself?” Rey asked. She didn’t want to hear that. Making herself hurt, oh she could bear that. Which was, she supposed, the problem he was expressing. But him hurting himself?

“No,” he said, “But it would have gotten there. After a point, I’d probably stop asking, stop trying, accept it. That’s what I was trained to do, wasn’t it?”

She pulled herself loose from him, whirled around and kissed him, hard, bruisingly. Her fingers clutched at the front of his shirt, her tongue shoved its way into his mouth—and he was ready for her. His fingers traced up and down her cheeks, his body curved as if to pull her in to him. She couldn’t bear it—she couldn’t.

_ That’s what I was trained to do, wasn’t it? _

She shuddered. 

They needed to negotiate. To renegotiate. She hadn’t been letting him do that. Yes, she’d needed to push him through the door, but after that? She needed to trust him. And she wasn’t trusting him.

She didn’t trust herself.

If Qui-Gon hadn’t had major objections, they could try. They  _ could _ try. Couldn’t they?

“How are you so much more…” she trailed away, trying to find a word. His arms were around her waist, now, and his hands were in her hair. He was so warm. And sturdy. 

He’d seemed so fragile when she’d first met him. 

She should have known she wouldn’t have to. He laughed. “I’m not,” he said. “I don’t really know what I am right now, and I’m an anxious mess.” His face grew more serious. “But I feel more able to face that, I guess. Because I have you.” He swallowed and his eyes went bright. “I have faith I’ll get there because of you. Hope, I guess. Hope’s getting me through.”

She closed her eyes. If Ben had hope, then she could have hope too. 

“What did you have in mind? For the play party?”

His arms tightened around her, and together they went back into the dining room.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much, as ever, for your lovely reviews. They really mean the world <3 I'm so excited to finally be posting this chapter. The last one should be up on New Years Eve (dang, we're really almost done with this aren't we?)
> 
> I commissioned some art from Derpy_mommy on Twitter of Ben preparing to draw Rey! Check it out [ here! ](https://twitter.com/crossing_winter/status/1343232611930537985/photo/1)
> 
> Lastly, triggers in the endnotes.

“Ready?”

They were sitting in his Mistress’ car. Ben was in black jeans and a shirt that would come off when they were inside. His Mistress wore a black lace corset, stilettos, and a skirt that was barely more than an inch long and definitely didn’t fully cover her ass. 

Ben took a deep, slow breath. Then he nodded.

“You have your bell?” his Mistress said. He nodded.

_ Shake the bell for yellow, drop it for red.  _ Because he wasn’t going to speak tonight. 

That was what they had agreed to. Ben didn’t think he’d need it, though. He felt excited as he got out of the car, rounded to the driver’s side and opened the door for his Mistress. She took his hand and he felt her tracing her fingers over his ring. 

She led him up the street to the address that Poe and Rose had sent them, then knocked firmly on the door. The curtains in the window were all drawn, but Ben could see shadows through to the other side. He recognized postures, recognized the implications of outfits. They were in the right place. 

The door swung open and his Mistress presented her invitation and the guy watching the door let them in. Ben took his Mistress’ coat, and shrugged out of his own, and placed them carefully on the bench by the door that was already covered. Then he peeled off his own shirt and turned back to her, his gaze down. His eyes were right on her chest, and years of training kept him from smirking. 

“Good boy,” she breathed in his ear and a shiver went down his spine.  _ Yes _ . 

Yes, they were back to this, yes he  _ did _ like being called a good boy, yes, he  _ did _ want to be in a room full of other people who would look at him and know what he was to her. “Let’s go find our friends,” she murmured, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. 

She walked ahead of him as they’d agreed. He was always to follow her, always keep his eyes down. This wasn’t new to him at the play parties he’d gone to. What was new to him was the way it felt looking at Rey’s ass as they walked. That skirt  _ really _ didn’t cover her up at all. Again, he bit back a grin. 

He heard a whistle. “That him?”

“That’s him,” his Mistress said. 

“Lucky girl.” It was a woman’s voice, a little brassy. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman who was shorter than his Mistress, dressed in red leather. At her side knelt Poe, who had a ball gag strapped into his mouth.  _ This must be Rose.  _ But he was not such a fool as to look up and see her face. 

His Mistress placed her hand on his shoulder and he knelt down onto the ground. He breathed in and out and listened. He knew better than to look around right now. He and his Mistress had agreed that his gaze was to remain downcast unless she asked him to look at her. He saw leather shoes, heels, fishnet stockings moving in and out of focus while his Mistress talked with Rose. But more important than being able to see, he could  _ hear _ the difference.

The music was quieter than at the play parties he’d been to with Snoke. There were fewer cries, too. Cries of pleasure or passion or pain. It was more conversational. The lighting was different too—warmer. Lamps were draped with colored scarves, rather than the whole building being lit by black lights. It made a difference. It made it cozier. It made it feel safer.

But most importantly, there was his Mistress’ hand resting lazily on his shoulder. His Mistress. He didn’t know if there were words that could quite describe the way he felt with her. The way he felt shielded by her, and yet also somehow her shield. The way he felt safe and supported, but also increasingly like he could help support  _ her _ . He felt inspired. He felt inspirational. He felt so much more than he’d felt for years—maybe even for all his life.

He wanted to look up at her, to watch her talking to her friend, just to see the way she was tossing her head as she laughed. But he didn’t want to disappoint her. There was no  _ fear  _ in disappointing her, even if he did. There was just the strong desire to make her proud. 

_ This is good,  _ he thought as he looked at Poe’s knees.  _ This is good. I can do this. If it’s the right person, it can be right. _

He wondered what everyone else was thinking. He was sure from a few things that Poe had texted him over the past few weeks that people were intrigued that he was going to be there at all. Would they know that everything he did was a credit to her, her faith in him? Or would they think that all his good training was Snoke’s and Snoke’s alone?

Surely not, though. Poe had assured him that this little community wanted nothing to do with Snoke. That they’d just as soon be caught dead than at one of Snoke’s play parties.

His Mistress was playing with his hair. Her fingers massaged his scalp, ran along his hairline at the back of his neck.  _ Good boy,  _ her touch seemed to say. He shivered.

If tonight weren’t what it was, if they weren’t pushing their boundaries already, he’d be sure that he was going to have the best orgasm of his life tonight, just from his behavior, from the way she was touching him. He wondered if he wouldn’t even feel curious, one day, about anything exhibitionist in this space. If he felt safe enough. If he felt… better enough. It felt like it could be safe. It felt like it could be.

_ I could offer to draw her in costume when we get back,  _ he thought. She knew, by now, that that was code for touching himself, even if he wasn’t going to touch her. Or maybe she’d relax her boundaries. Maybe if she saw he could get through the night like this, if she saw that  _ she _ could do it with him, they could negotiate… something. 

“I’m thirsty,” he heard his Mistress say above him. “Be a good boy and get me something to drink.”

Ben rose to his feet as gracefully as he could, given how stiff his knees had gotten while kneeling. He looked up enough to see where he was going as he crossed through the living room of the house, through the foyer, and into the dining room where he found the bar. His Mistress liked red wine, but not if it didn’t have enough tannins in it. So he poured himself a drop of wine and took a sip to make sure she would like it.

It was when the wine hit his tongue that everything changed.

The warm, convivial conversations around him died and he heard a voice that made his blood run cold. 

“Well, well. I always did wonder what your parties were like.”

He would not drop the glass. He  _ would _ not drop the glass. His hands were shaking as he set the glass back down on the table.

What was he supposed to do? What was he—he wanted to run, to hide. He wanted to yell. He wanted to melt through the floor.

“You’re not welcome here.” That was Rose’s voice. 

“I have an invitation,” Snoke replied, his voice smooth as an oil slick. “So why am I not welcome? This isn’t your house. You don’t get to decide who comes and goes.”

Ben felt like he was going to be sick. He wondered how his Mistress would punish him if he went into the kitchen and out the back door. If she had to come find him, if he reflected cowardice before her friends, surely she’d punish him. She’d hate him. 

He wanted to turn, to look for her, to find her. But he couldn’t make himself turn towards Snoke’s voice. He couldn’t.

“Ben.” He started out of his skin. He hadn’t heard her approach, but she was there, her hands warm against his back. “Ben, let’s get out of here.”

Ben, not  _ good boy _ . Ben. Ben, not Kylo. Ben, with his Mistress who was also his mistress. Rey. Rey, with her hand lacing its way firmly into his as she pulled him towards the door, towards Snoke.

_ No.  _

No, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t go towards him. He felt like a frightened animal, a dog on a leash who needed to be dragged because it was too stubborn to move.

“We have to get out somehow,” Rey whispered. “We need our coats. It’s cold outside.”

Ben would rather run naked for miles through the snow and ice than face Snoke. 

“And what have we here?”

From the way his voice echoed, Ben knew that Snoke was in the dining room now. 

He wouldn’t look. He refused. He couldn’t. He didn’t want—

“If you want your submissive to go with you, you’ll need a firmer hand than that. Make sure he knows you mean it when you want him to obey.”

“I don’t need advice on how to Domme from  _ you _ ,” she spat. Ben wished he could see her face. He wished he could make his eyes look up. 

“Then you’ll fail,” Snoke said. “You’ve already failed, though. You chose the wrong submissive. This one… well… he’s ruined. I’m better off with my new pet.”

“Don’t you dare even speak of him,” Rey snarled. “He’s not yours. If you’re going to talk about my—”

“Your what? He won’t even listen to you, will he. Even now, he’s more responsive to my voice than yours.”

He turned to look at Snoke. 

Snoke was still bald, still scarred, still had icy blue eyes. He was leering at Ben, his eyes dripping over his bare chest, his lips curling in a way that said  _ you’re mine. You’ll always be mine. _

It was like time stood still. 

It was like he was traveling at light speed.

It was like every piece of him—the parts that had been Ben as a boy, the parts that had been Kylo, the parts that were Ben again now—every piece of him shook, like a jigsaw puzzle in an earthquake. Would they break apart? Or would it hold together, a perfect picture except for the indentations between the pieces?

He didn’t feel like himself—or perhaps he felt the most like himself he’d ever felt in his life—as he pulled Rey’s ring from his finger. He held it tight in his fist as stepped towards Snoke. But for some reason, he wasn’t afraid. Why wasn’t he afraid? He’d been cowering only moments before.

_ I’m not yours. You never deserved me. _

His voice rumbled low in his chest as words fell from his lips. “Yeah, I’m responsive to your voice.” And that fist that held Rey’s ring in its heart connected hard with Snoke’s jaw. There was a crunching sound, and Snoke toppled to the ground. Ben stepped over his body and left the room without looking back. He didn’t know whose house this was, didn’t know who to apologize to for making a scene, but he also wasn’t entirely sure he  _ had _ to apologize. Whose fucking sick joke was it to invite Snoke here, to a place where all their friends hated Snoke, and where Snoke’s former submissive was? 

He was trembling with fury, with sheer adrenaline, as he grabbed his shirt and put on his coat and stepped out into the night. He thought he heard Snoke’s voice, but didn’t even stop to hear whatever it was his former Master had to say. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

The cold and dark calmed him down and he sat down on the porch stairs and waited. Rey would be out in a minute, he knew that. She’d be out and they’d go back to her place, and he wasn’t going to put his ring back on until he’d made her come at least three times. He held it clutched tightly in his hand, holding onto it as though it was his own heart. 

His head hadn’t felt so clear in years. 

The door opened behind him and he knew it was Rey because he recognized the sound of her gait as she crossed the porch and descended the stairs. She didn’t pause next to him, she didn’t stop to greet him, she just kept going, out into the night.

Ben got to his feet. She was halfway down the driveway when he heard her let out a choked sob and his heart stopped.

“Rey,” he called after her, running to catch up, to pull her into his arms. “Rey, sweetheart.”

She let him catch her, let him hold her close, her back to his chest, the way he had the other night. 

“I couldn’t,” she sobbed. 

“You could, you did.” He wasn’t exactly sure what she was talking about, but he could guess.

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I—I let him—he wouldn’t—”

“Stop it,” Ben growled. “Stop. You  _ did _ .”

“I’m not. Let go of me.”

He did. He felt like he’d been punched as she pulled away from him.

But she didn’t leave him behind. She just took a few steps away, leaning on a lamp post and gasping, heaving. She wasn’t sick, but she looked like it was a near miss. Her face, when she did look up at him, was blotchy in the lamplight. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said. Her voice was ragged, her eyes miserable. “Ben, I’m so sorry. I never thought he’d have been invit—”

Behind them, the door opened and they saw Snoke on the porch with a submissive that Ben hadn’t even noticed before—shrimpy and red-haired. 

“Let’s get back to the car,” Ben said at once and he grabbed Rey’s hand and led her to it. He opened the door for her before rounding to the passenger side and getting in himself. They didn’t need to necessarily drive, just not share any air with Snoke. But Rey turned on the car, she put it in gear and off they drove into the night.

-

_ Everyone leaves. _

Try as she might, she couldn’t get the thought from her head.  _ Everyone leaves. Mom and Dad showed you that. Everyone leaves. _

Even if Ben was sitting in her car, he was going. He was gone. He’d taken her ring off. He hadn’t even safeworded first, he just took it off. For all she knew, he’d thrown it into the dirt.

It was kind of him, really, to try and comfort her. More than she deserved. But he’d be gone again soon, and Rey would have failed catastrophically with him, just as she failed catastrophically always with everyone she got close to. Everyone leaves. And Ben was just like everyone else.

_ Let it go,  _ Leia’s voice whispered in her mind.  _ Accept it. You can’t control people. You can only hope. And you must hope. What are we if we don’t hope? _

She hoped he didn’t hate her for exposing him to Snoke like that. She should never have agreed to it. He’d asked her to, they’d negotiated, but she’d still agreed. For all she knew, one of Rose’s friends had invited Snoke just because she’d said yes.  _ And I thought it would be a nice little community to join, if Ben felt ready. _

“Rey,” Ben whispered, and his hand found hers. He squeezed it. 

He took off her ring. He wasn’t hers anymore.

He had wanted to be hers. It had mattered to him that he still was. 

Not anymore.

She’d fucked up. She’d fucked up. She’d fucked up.

_ Everyone leaves. _

_ You’ll never be enough for him,  _ Snoke had said to her as Ben had closed the door to the house.  _ You’ll never be enough for anyone if you can’t be enough for him. _

Why was she even trying? Why was she pretending?

She pulled into her driveway and they sat there silently for a long moment. 

_ Do it,  _ she told herself.  _ Do it. Be graceful about it. Respect him and what he wants. _

“Well,” she said quietly. God she wished she sounded braver. She wished she didn’t feel like the world was ending. “I know it ended on a bad note, but I hope that when you look back on it, you won’t fully regret our time together.”

“What?” He sounded utterly bewildered. She unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the car door. “Rey.” She heard him fumbling with his seatbelt as well and a moment later he was out of the car. “What the fuck are you—”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I truly am. That it couldn’t—”

“That  _ what _ couldn’t?” He was in front of her now, but she couldn’t make herself look up at his face. If she did, she knew she’d truly start to cry.

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

He didn’t say anything. She could tell he was staring at her. She wondered if he’d miss her too. He hadn’t said it yet.

“Why?” he croaked out. There was despair dripping in his voice. “Please, Rey. Why? Please don’t do this.”

That didn’t make sense. “Don’t do what?”

“Don’t  _ leave _ me.”

That made her look up. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. He looked confused, and hurt, and angry, and so many things.

“I don’t want to—” she began.

“Then  _ don’t _ . What’s the point of—”

“But you took my collar off.” He froze. His eyes went wide as though it had only just hit him that he’d done that. “Don’t you—I thought you—” His lips parted slowly. “I thought it meant you were done.”

And he was pressing her against the car, his lips devouring hers, one fisted hand pressed against the metal frame beneath her, the other hoisting one of her legs around his hips so he could pull her closer to him. She couldn’t breathe anything but him, couldn’t see or taste or think anything but him. He was holding her like he never wanted to let her go. 

“I took it off so I could talk to him,” he said. “So I could hit him on my terms. So it wouldn’t be part of what we are. So it could be me. Rey,” and he pressed his face into the crook of her neck. “Rey—please. I couldn’t bear to leave you. Please know that.”

She burst into tears. She couldn’t help it. Her fingers scrabbled over the front of his jacket, trying to find the best place to cling to him and he eased her away from the car. Together, they stumbled towards her front door. She fumbled with her keys and let them in. Shoes were kicked off, coats ended up on the floor, and the two of them tumbled onto her bed, Ben hovering over her. 

His hair was beautiful, falling into his face above her. She wanted to run her hands through it. She wanted to hold it while she came. She wanted to look at it and memorize the way each individual hair fell when he whispered, “I love you.”

If he was afraid, he didn’t show it. 

She felt weightless, breathless. It felt like someone else whispered, “I love you, too,” back to him, but it had to have been her. They were the only two in the room. She watched as he leaned back slightly, as he placed something on the bedside table. Her ring. His collar. 

Her eyes flicked back to him, and she couldn’t say anything at all. If she said anything, something would break.

“I love you, Ben.”

She was right. It broke. It broke like a crashing wave, his lips at her neck, his hands running over every inch of skin he could manage. Heat radiated from his chest as he rolled over her, rolled her over so that she was straddling him. Now it was her hair falling into her face as she bent to suck on his chest, as his hard-on ran up and down her ass. Her heart was singing in her chest as his fingertips continued tracing her skin. 

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered to her. “So fucking beautiful, Rey. I love you so much.”

Rey had spent so many years fleeing love during sex. Sex and love—it sounded dangerous, a recipe for heartbreak and heartache. She didn’t know what love was, didn’t want love. 

Except oh, how she longed for it, the way his kiss slowed the moment her tongue found his, the way it got so deep it felt like he was inside every part of her body—not just her mouth, not even her cunt though he hadn’t penetrated her—places like her kneecap, like her liver, places that don’t scream of love and yet there he was. There he was, beating like her own heart. 

“I’m scared.” Was that her that whispered it, or him? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure if he was working the lungs in her chest or if she was.

“Don’t be. I love you.”

“I love you.”

It was a symphony. Every time one of them said it, there was music in the air. Their skin made percussion, their breathing an airy accompaniment. 

_ I love him. I love him. _

_ He’s not leaving. _

No, he wasn’t leaving. Once she’d worried about having sex with him, about commanding him, telling him to make love to her. 

Now she didn’t know what to tell him.

But she also didn’t have to. 

It was like Ben knew what she needed. He probably did. Of course he did. 

He was Ben. 

He licked his way down her body. He whispered  _ I love you _ to her freckles, to her belly button, to the outward curve of her hip-bone. He whispered  _ I love you _ to her cunt before he began to lick, and lick, and lick. She’d taught him just what she liked and he remembered all of it, the way she liked his fingers inside her, the way she liked to be teased. She didn’t have to tell him what to do because he had learned to read her body. How quickly he’d learned. How little he’d forgotten. 

Her hands fumbled for his hair, pulling it gently, weaving her fingers through it. She never wanted to forget what his hair felt like tonight, soft, a little bit sweaty. 

She opened her eyes because she wanted to watch him, wanted to see the way he looked between her legs and saw that his hips were cocked up. She sat up on her elbows. He was running one huge hand up and down his erection. She watched him stroke with the same rhythm he was using with his fingers inside her cunt.

“Ben,” she whispered.

He looked up at her, his tongue still pressed to her clit.

She looked down to his dick. “Let me,” she said.

He frowned slightly, but that didn’t mean he didn’t obey.

No, not obey. It wasn’t an order. He wasn’t wearing her ring. He was here because he wanted to be, because he wanted  _ her _ and not just any  Domme who would work him over with a riding crop. He wanted her.

He moved because he wanted to—because he wanted to make her happy.

He pulled her gently onto her side, bending his torso slightly so that his own hips were closer to her face. Then her stomach jolted and he began to lick her again. Again, and again, and her hands cupped his sac, traced the skin of his hip while his beautiful, long, thick cock bobbed in anticipation, precum pooling at its tip. 

She licked it clean and his whole body shuddered at the contact. He groaned into her cunt when she took him into her mouth, relaxing her jaw, relaxing her throat so that she could press her nose into his lower abdomen.

“Fuck, Rey,” he groaned, his hand tightening on her ass. She pulled her head back, her hands stroking her saliva into his skin, twisting so very lightly. His tongue faltered against her. 

She smirked.

She knew what she was doing. 

If he were wearing her ring, she’d tell him not to come before she did. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t, and she wanted him to come, hard and fast. She wanted to make him feel good. She’d put him in such a horrible position that night, but she never would again. She wanted him to know that—needed him to know.

So she played for keeps. There was a time for teasing, and a time for overpowering and she knew which one she needed tonight. She sucked him down deep into her throat again, and ran her fingers around the surface of his asshole. She hadn’t told him to use a plug in ages and her lube was out of reach, she wasn’t going to do anything stupid, but she knew that surface stimulation would only drive him mad that much faster.

She was right.

He bucked against her touch, his dick shoving somehow deeper into her throat. She didn’t gag but he did hear her sputtering and he pulled away at once. “Sorry,” he whispered into her. Then kissed into her. Then—

Oh holy shit.

She really had taught him well, hadn’t she?

If he kept doing that like that, she was going to—

She had to pull off him to breathe as it washed over her. Her hand found his thigh, her forehead rested against his hip, and she just had to—

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I know,” he whispered back. His fingers were trailing along her leg. He loved her. She loved him. He loved her. He wasn’t leaving her. 

Her heart was slamming against her ribs, her cunt was clutching at his fingers, the smell of his sweat filled her nose, and he wasn’t leaving her. He was loving her.

She pulled her head back slightly and pressed a kiss to his hip bone, then to his tip. Then she sucked him back into her mouth. Now it was his fingers in her hair as she pushed him onto his back and crouched over him. Now it was her remembering everything she’d learned about his body, everything she’d noticed about how he touched himself when he drew her—everything.

She remembered everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are mentions of alcohol in this chapter, some mentions of nausea, as well as a few triggering psychological incidents:
> 
> — Snoke shows up at the play party and Ben reacts. (Beginning at "It was when the wine hit his tongue that everything changed.")  
> — The start of Rey's POV is also her reacting to a trigger of hers.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, it's been a truly incredible ride with this fic and I can't believe it's over. Thank you from the bottom of my heart—for your kind words and support, for reading this, for letting me know that it meant something to you (because this one means a lot to me). 
> 
> I hope you have a good 2021. I hope there is joy and health and friends for each and every one of you <3

Ben woke tangled in her, her legs wrapped around his, her arms across his chest, his around her hips. She was snoring softly into his neck, and her heart was thumping gently against his ribcage.

He felt light and heavy both at once. He felt too languid to move, but also that if he breathed too deeply, he’d lift up off the bed, levitate like a balloon. His mind felt quiet. Quieter than it had in years.

_ I love you,  _ she’d moaned at him, her hands in his hair.  _ I love you, I love you, I love you. _

And he believed her.

And he’d said it to her, said it back to her, and meant it.

And that didn’t frighten him.

He’d punched Snoke in the face. He’d been in the same room as him, had spoken to him, and yet the most terrifying part of the night before had been the brief minutes where he thought that Rey was leaving him.

_ Progress _ , he could practically hear Qui-Gon telling him. Or maybe it was his mother. He wasn’t totally sure. 

Rey shifted next to him, sighing slightly, and he pulled her closer. He could tell from the change in her breathing that she was beginning to wake up. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She stretched, her body pressing deliciously against his as a noise escaped the back of her throat. Then, at last, she opened those beautiful warm hazel eyes of hers.

“Good morning.” His voice rumbled low in his chest as he said it. 

“Morning,” she replied, a little breathily. She was beautiful.

Beautiful, and oddly a little shy. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d pressed her cunt against his thigh. But he supposed it was different now. Things were different, but not in a bad way. It wasn’t a  _ no going back _ , it was an  _ I want to keep going _ and he wasn’t afraid of that.

Was she?

She pressed a kiss to his neck, her hand now rubbing up and down his chest in a way that went right to his dick. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

“I love you.” Quick, and confident, and without hesitation or fear. 

“I love you,” she replied at once. He bent his head to kiss her, to roll her onto her back, to hold her like he’d never let her go. “I meant the party, though.”

He stilled, still hovering over her, pulling his head back slightly. 

“Not right now,” he said after a brief pause. 

“Ben,” she began, but he kissed her, and she sighed into his mouth. “Later then,” she told him.

“Later’s fine,” he replied, and he pulled her legs around his hips and traced now-practiced fingers along her slit, testing her, teasing her.

He was full of her, and yet he was parched. He would never have enough of her, and yet he felt satiated. His whole body felt light, and yet he couldn’t lift himself off the bed, couldn’t make himself move. He didn’t have to move. Rey was there. She was warm in his arms, and soft, and her breath kind of stank but it was the good kind of stink because it meant this wasn’t a dream, some phantom that Snoke could take away from him.

He’d punched Snoke, though. He'd actually punched him. 

That light feeling in his body expanded. He tightened his arms around Rey.

He was never going to think about Snoke while he was in bed with Rey ever again. Not when she was humming, not when she was running her tongue over his lips like that, rubbing her nose against his, her hands toying with the hairs at the nape of his neck. In her arms he felt beautiful and alive, and that was the only thing that would ever matter in bed with her. 

She let him roll her over so that she was astride him, let him push her up so that he could see the gentle sway of her breasts as her hips rolled against his. She let him thumb her clit, strum it until she made the most beautiful music he’d ever heard.

He didn’t think he’d ever get over it, the feeling of her shuddering and gasping around him. He hoped he wouldn’t. It felt like flying. Her moaned words of love—they pierced him right to his core and made him feel like the world was glowing as he came as hard as he had the night before.

They lay there panting and sweaty for a few minutes before Rey sat up. “Shower,” she said. “Then breakfast.”

They showered together, taking their time. Ben washed Rey’s hair, Rey gave him a handjob, and he kissed her under the warm stream of the shower head.  _ I’ll kiss you in the rain,  _ he thought at her.  _ I’ll kiss you every day until we die.  _ The air was full of lavender and oatmeal and peace.

He cooked her breakfast while they were still wrapped in towels, some French toast and eggs. And it was only as he was putting the first bite of it into his mouth that Rey said, “Last night.”

He looked at her evenly. “I was enjoying the party until Snoke showed up,” he said. “It didn’t feel like too much. It made me want to try more play. I’ve missed it.”

“I was asking about Snoke,” she said quietly.

“I know,” he replied. “But I didn’t want that to get lost either.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not afraid of you. The problem isn’t… I don’t...” he took a deep breath. He didn’t know how to say it right. How to articulate the issue that he’d always felt there beneath the surface. The  _ reason _ that he hadn’t just stopped after Snoke had dropped him, the reason he’d wanted more. “The framework helps me,” he said. “I always liked having them. It helped me feel more like…” But that wasn’t right either. God, this was frustratingly hard. But Rey waited, watching him, taking bites of the food he’d made for her and chewing slowly, thinking. “I want to keep doing this with you. I want everything with you. I want to hold you, and to be held by you. I want to give my submission to you, I want to top you, I want… I want it all. I want it because I want you. Being there last night wasn’t overwhelming because it was about you, not about,” he waved a hand in front of his face, “everything that happened to me. That Snoke did. It was looking forward, not back, and I liked that. I want to be kinky and obedient and communicative and domestic. I want all of it.” His mouth was dry, so he took another bite of eggs.

Rey took a sip of orange juice. “Did it feel good, punching him?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Ben replied. “I’ll do it again if I see him ever.”

“Please don’t. I don’t want him to get you arrested for assault.”

Ben laughed. He just laughed. What a silly thing to focus on. “He’s too much of a coward to do that,” Ben said. “He wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t he?”

“Nah,” Ben said. “If he would, why aren’t there cops arresting me right now? He had eye-witnesses who saw me do it, but he hasn’t. He won’t.”

“Before you hit him,” Rey began carefully. “You were—”

“Terrified,” he replied. He squared his shoulders. “But the worst is done. He has done his worst. Everything else, I can fight back. He’s just a cowardly old man, and I can deck him and make him shut the fuck up. He doesn’t get to be a voice in my head anymore.”

“I don’t think it’s as easy as that,” Rey began.

“I don’t either,” Ben said. “But I do think a door closed. And there’s other stuff I’ll have to work on, but that helped. It helped  _ a lot _ .”

She smiled at him. “I’m sure it did.” He loved her smile. He loved her confidence, her faith. He wouldn’t be standing where he was without it. “I just worry.”

“I worry about you,” he replied. “I’d be worried about us if we didn’t worry about each other. We’ve both got our shit.” 

“Yes, but you’re not the one who’s going to be walking on eggshells, afraid of triggering me.”

Ben raised his eyebrows. “What was last night, then?” he asked quietly.

She frowned. “What?”

“When you were crying and didn’t realize it? When you couldn’t really breathe? When you were convinced I was leaving you because I took off your ring and your eyes were duller than I’d ever seen them? What was that if not you getting fucking triggered because your parents abandoned you when you were a kid.”

Rey’s lips parted, a silent  _ oh _ escaping her lips. “I—” she began. “I didn’t think—there wasn’t time.”

“No,” he agreed. “There wasn’t. But that was what that was, wasn’t it?”

Slowly, she nodded, looking down at her breakfast. He wished he could see her face. He wished he could see the beginnings of what she was thinking in her eyes. 

“There’s no way to avoid triggers, I suppose,” she said at last, taking another bite of her breakfast. “Anything can set them off and you won’t realize what it is until a few days later sometimes. It’s how you learn to manage them.” 

He nodded. “So we’ll manage them.”

She frowned, thinking. “I just worry it won’t be that easy. I worry. But I suppose…” she let out a heavy sigh. “I suppose that means it’s important to me. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t worry as much.” She gave him a tentative smile. 

He felt he could sink to the floor with the relief he felt at the sight of her smile. Tentative or otherwise, she was smiling. 

She took a breath to continue. “Snoke,” she began, but he cut her off.

“I don’t want to talk about Snoke anymore,” he said. “I’ll do it in therapy. But I don’t want him touching you and me anymore. I want him as far away from you as he can be. I don’t know what he said to you last night. I don’t want to know.”

She gave him a sad smile. “Nothing I hadn’t thought about myself already.”

“Well, fuck him, and fuck that voice. He’s a bad person. That’s why I punched him. He doesn’t get to make you feel that way. Rule number one of whatever the fuck we transition into from here: no Snoke.”

Rey chuckled. “No Snoke,” she agreed. “Should we make new checklists then?”

Ben frowned, hesitating. 

“Or maybe wishlists,” she amended. “We can’t make a checklist until we’ve figured out what we want to be. I love you, and you love me. We can’t not allow for that. We can’t go back to the beginning. So we need to figure out what we can agree on first.”

“I like that,” Ben said quietly.

“Good,” Rey said. She got up from the kitchen island, letting her towel drop to the floor. Ben’s mouth went dry. God she was beautiful. He loved her so much. “I’ll grab paper and pens.”

-

_ Wishlist,  _ Rey wrote at the top of the page and underlined it.

_ Play: _

She would start there. It was easier to start there. The part that was outside of play was much scarier.

  * _Collared time on weekends_


  * Revisiting checklists



She paused. The thing she wanted to put there might not be something he was interested in. He’d topped her last night. Hell, he’d topped her every time he’d drawn her. He’d even said that he wanted to top her. But there was a difference between wanting uncollared topping and… 

  * _Me subbing for you sometimes_



Because she had subbed before. And she liked it. She’d always yearned to Domme, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t sub, and she got this shiver up her spine whenever he took control. 

_ It’s ok if you don’t want this _ , she wrote.  _ This is a wishlist. It’s not a make-or-break. But if it’s something you want, I’d be willing. I could teach you how to Dom. _

He probably already knew. He knew from years of experience with a harsh teacher and all the things he knew he never wanted to be.

She sighed.

  * _Play parties? Group play? You initially listed being ok with exhibitionism, but I don’t know if that’s changed._



She would give Rose a piece of her mind. She’d had about eighty texts from her the night before, but hadn’t read or replied to any of them. She was sure there were profuse apologies, that there were assertions that it would never happen again. But even if Ben seemed to be doing ok, she found it hard to forgive. 

_ Give it time,  _ she could practically hear Amilyn saying.  _ If it wasn’t intentional, if it was an accident, feel your bruise and then let go. _

The number one rule she and Ben had agreed to was no Snoke. Which meant, she supposed, she’d have to move on from this. But she would give Rose a piece of her mind.

_ Relationship: _

She stopped, her mouth a bit dry. Across the living room, in the chair that he always drew her from, Ben was writing. He was so beautiful. So very beautiful. 

And he loved her.

And he didn’t want to leave her, didn’t want her to leave him. 

What did she want?

  * _I want to be able to tell Finn about you, and talk about how much I love you without being afraid._


  * I want to wake up to you


  * I want to laugh in bed with you


  * I want to eat food you make for me and go to yoga with you


  * I want to trust myself around you


  * I want you to trust yourself around me



These weren’t practical wants, though. Important, yes. But not guidelines to bring to the table.

_ Regular relationships don’t have guidelines the way BDSM ones do. You can’t just set up a checklist and align on them. _

_ You can just promise to love each other. _

Her pencil hovered over her paper, her mind a little blank. 

_ I love you,  _ she wrote.  _ I want to spend weeknights curled up with you. I want to go to movies with you. I want to be there with you when you work on yourself, and I want you to be with me when I work on myself. I want our lives to be good, even if they’re hard sometimes. I want us to have kinky fucking sex. I want us to have quiet morning coffee.  _

_ I want us. _

“This is hard,” Ben said and she looked over at him again.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“What have you got so far?”

Part of her wanted to hold her wishlist close to her chest, but instead she passed it to him. He handed his to her.

  * _Collared sex_


  * New checklist 


  * Switching sometimes? (I like topping you. I’m just not really sure what I’m doing, but want to try)



She grinned, and peeked at him out of the corner of her eyes. He was smiling too. 

Then the list changed.

  * _Take you out on dates_


  * Keep cooking for you. 


  * Weeknight sleepovers. (Maybe collar only on weekends for now?)


  * Holidays



And then, scratched out,

  * _Holidays with my family_



Then a note,

  * _Not that I don’t want this, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be invited for holidays again after ghosting them for years._


  * Being a family. Not like getting married just yet. But being there for each other


  * Fuck this is hard


  * I just want everything with you



“I just want everything with you too,” Rey whispered.

“I feel…” Ben’s voice trailed away and he sounded almost wistful. “I feel like I lucked into you. This just feels too aligned and I don’t…” He took a deep breath. “I don’t deserve you. But I also do.”

“You do.” Rey got up and crossed to him. “We deserve happiness. And we want to give one another happiness.” 

“Yeah,” he whispered. His hands ran up and down her sides and shivers ran across her skin again. “And we’ll keep trying, and trying and trying,” but she lost the rest of his words in his kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't miss the Epilogue in Chapter 13 <3


	13. Epilogue

_ Six Months Later _

Ben took a deep breath.  _ You can do this.  _

_ You can do this. _

He stared at his phone.

He’d unblocked her number last month. He hadn’t told Rey. They didn’t talk about his parents, because his parents were part of the past. He told Rey that he’d been working up to calling her in therapy, but one of the things he loved about Rey was she knew when and how to push, and she knew better than to push him about this. 

The flood of text messages that had come through to him after he’d unblocked her number had sent him spiraling. Little  _ I love you _ s, and  _ I miss you _ s, and  _ I hope you’re doing all right _ s. After the first month nearly ten years before, he hadn’t gotten any  _ please call me _ s. He got the impression from looking at the phone that they were messages more that she was sending for herself than for him.

At first, he’d been angry about that. That she would do that. That she wouldn’t understand that he was fucking done. 

But after the initial rage, he’d just felt empty, and sad. His mom was still texting him. She still loved him, even if she’d never known how to love him.

She didn’t even know if he’d changed his phone number or not, but she still texted him.

The most recent one was from two months before, right around his birthday. He’d spent the weekend tied to Rey’s bed while she worked him over with a riding crop and then fucked his ass with a strap-on, but his mother had texted him  _ Happy birthday, Ben. I love you so much. _

_ You can do this _ , he told himself again.

He was sitting on a bench on campus. He’d just finished his accounting class, and was supposed to be practicing a sketch for the drawing class he was in, but he couldn’t quite make himself do it, because he’d woken up that morning and had known that he was going to call his mother today.

_ Just do it. Rip the band-aid off. _

He took a deep breath, then pressed the little phone button under the name  _ Leia Organa. _

His heart was hammering in his throat. His eyes were unfocused. But he was breathing, and waiting. 

Just when he thought it was going to go to voicemail--just his luck, his mother not even picking up when he called--the ringing cut out and he heard breathing. 

“Ben?”

She said it quietly, disbelievingly, maybe even tearfully.

He swallowed. “Hi, Mom.”

He ended up sitting on the campus until it was nearly dark outside, his mother in his ear.

He asked her about Dad (still trying to make his car run), and his uncle (raising llamas out west), his godfathers and everything he’d cut himself off from. “I just want it to be clear that I’m talking to a therapist about most of this,” he said in turn. “And that there’s a lot,” he paused, “A lot that I’ll have trouble talking to you about because I think you’re analyzing me and not just listening to me.”

“I’ll listen,” she promised, and he could hear the tears in her voice and he wanted to believe her. He really did. 

He remembered Rey telling him that she valued his honesty, would never punish him for it. She never had, even if he hadn’t known if he could believe her.

He could try that now. And if she ever let him down, he’d tell her. He’d push her. Because he was her son, but he wasn’t a kid anymore. He’d gone through too much to accept that from her anymore. 

He told her about Snoke, about years of abuse and violation. He told her about loneliness and isolation, fear and paranoia. Whenever she cut in, her voice was thick, her breathing heavy. He knew she was either crying, or trying not to. 

“So what changed?” she asked at last. “What changed for you? What got you to therapy, and…”  _ And calling me again? _

“My girlfriend,” he said at last. “I met her almost a year ago. Her name is Rey, and she is my Domme still.” Sometimes, anyway. They alternated now. “But my girlfriend mostly.”

“Rey?” His mother’s voice caught in her throat as she said it. She sounded distant, bewildered, and full of wonder, all at the same time. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so happy for you. She,” his mom paused. “She sounds wonderful.”

“She is,” Ben said.

“I hope I get to see you two together one day,” his mother said. She still sounded so much lighter than he’d ever known her to. His throat thickened. It really sounded like she was happy for him, like she was proud of him.

“I hope so too,” he whispered.

He hung up eventually. He stared at the screen for a few seconds. 

It was like she knew he was thinking of her, the way that the text message bubble popped up on his screen, with the tiny preview of a photograph.

When he opened it, it was Rey in a bra he hadn’t seen before, with a leather crop resting between her breasts. Her full face wasn’t in the picture, just her lips. She was biting her lower lip.

_ Come over, _ came a moment later.

Ben smiled to himself.

Yes, he’d come. He’d come right over.

He thumbed  _ Love you,  _ into his phone, then got to his feet and made his way back to Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, once again.
> 
> I wanted to pop an end-note here because I have no intention of writing a sequel to this. I ended up skimping on Leia a bit more than I planned to at the outset of this fic. I had a whole plan, but the further into it I went, the more I realized that that Plan was happening too soon for Ben's head, and it was important to me that he punch Snoke, and I'm not sure he would have if I'd incorporated Leia when I'd planned to. That would have taken the story in a vastly different direction. A cathartic and interesting one, but not the one I wanted. And the thing is: the Leia plans still work, they're just after the scope of the fic. And I thought about putting them in an epilogue, but I'm a firm believer in short epilogues, so instead of writing them out in fic form, I figured I'd give some headcanons I had to chew on and let you enjoy them (or skip them) as you wanted:
> 
> — Ben and Leia start talking on the phone regularly. He doesn't talk to her about his past directly, and she respects his boundaries.  
> — She does, after a few phone calls, come clean about having worked with Rey, once she's 100% sure that his Rey is the same Rey she worked with. This is frightening for Ben and he hangs up and doesn't call her again for a few weeks, and doesn't tell Rey what's going on—at least not at first.  
> — He does eventually, and Rey calls Leia to talk to her about what all this should mean. She, more than Ben, talks a bit about Ben's anxiety, his pain, his healing, his growth. (She gets permission beforehand because she has gathered a lot about his relationship with his mother). She and Leia have a long conversation about what things would look like for them moving forward, what things will mean for Ben, but Leia also makes sure to highlight what it means for Rey: Leia is going from a therapist to a potential mother-figure. That's a transition not to be taken lightly or for granted, or to be forgotten in the face of Ben. She emphasizes that she trusts Rey with Ben, that she wants happiness for both of them, whatever that may mean, and that she wants as little detail as possible about their sex life moving forward as possible.  
> — From there, dear readers, the story is yours.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! You can find me [here](http://linktr.ee/crossingwinter)


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